OK....I get the picture...really I do....So let me sum up..
While I don’t seriously believe that the deal and the investment by MS was some sort of “altruistic act of compassion” as the writer of that piece uses as a strawman, I also don’t believe Apple was in total control and financial harmony.
The truth is usually in the middle.
Apple aficionados always frame the arguments as some gigantic long term completion between the giant MS and the upstart Apple operating systems. So how could this actually be true when at the time Apple had around a 5% market share!
If Bill Gates wanted to, he could have put the full weight of MS behind a effort to relegate Apple to the dustbin of history which is essentially what Apple aficionados claim was actually happening but Bill Gates was so shifty and evil that he was doing it in a way that could not be discovered by regulators.
It’s all a very interesting bit of fiction and it makes for great Hollywood movies, (that I have not watched) :-) but I think reality tells a slightly different tale and it’s not nearly as dramatic or exciting...
IMO, if you must connect these dots to some sort of internecine warfare, you would be better served to look into the fact that while both companies had their own individual issues, one thing they had in common was regulatory at the time (the government) so making peace on a few partnership issues was great cover for the fact that Apple needed that 150M immediately.
Microsoft saw it as a opportunity to form some bridges of partnership for marketing reasons and the so called operating system war was a figment of the publics imagination and that of Wall street.
Just as the so called “Browser wars” was more of a government interference regulatory issue then it was a Netscape-Microsoft street fight.
A little off topic, but what I find amusing is that Netscape actually did survive to become the most prolific browser on the planet!
It formed the basis of Google Chrome and is in Android OS.
Just my humble opinion...
And it achieved this without the protection of government regulators who have and currently are continuously breaking things in the business world for the sake of fairness...
You’re wrong, Apple did not need the $150 million. . . it was nice to get, but it was not required, except that Microsoft did have to pay compensation for stealing the IP, or the judge would not have agreed to the settlement. Apple needed Microsoft to re-start the discontinued Office for Mac and more to commit to continue developing it. Gates had cancelled Office to put pressure on Apple to get Apple to drop the lawsuit but Jobs wasn’t having it. Nor was he going to give them an inch. He did allow them a way to recover face and their payment at the end of the five years. . . By tying it to Apple’s success by making it a restricted stock purchase that Microsoft could not only recover, but GAIN on with Apple’s success! It was a brilliant play!