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Actually, MS split in December of 96, then twice during the time indicated. I believe that Apple may have split once during that time period as well, but I'd have to check. In any event, Apple stock hasn't out-performed MS stock by any reasonable measure. And since Gates still holds the stock, which is currently trading in the low 18's, by your own accounting, he's actually lost money.

But Gates didn't invest in Apple to make money on the stock. He's much better served sticking with his own. As far as an investment goes, at this point, Apple is a sucker bet. Each year, they become more and more marginalized, and while the Titanium Powerbook has done well, it is off-set by the G4 Cube disaster.

No, Gates invested in Apple to insure that his investment in Office for the mac didn't suddenly go tits-up, and also to gain leverage with Apple's management. There was also the PR aspect, which was huge.

The mac's dirty little secret... the top software developer for them is Microsoft. If history is any indication, then it is only a matter of time for Apple.

BTW, if you read my post, you'd see I use both. I have a G4 that I use for Media100 and AfterEffects, and I stated that it is superior for graphics processing and manipulation. But on all other counts, Windows wins hands down. I'm not anti-mac, just a realist.

There was also the PR aspect, which was huge.

FINALLY we agree on something. If the anti-trust weenies hadn't been breathing down his neck, he prolly would NOT have done it. If he would have converted the shares when he was first able to, he would have turned a tidy profit though, before the tech bubble burst.

If I am not mistaken Office 2001 for the Mac was written by them separately than their windoze version, instead of merely porting over the codebase from the windoze side. It has received RAVE reviews, but I also think the macro language is the same, so now we have to worry about all those macro-based virii. I still use Appleworks though. If I need anything more than that, I reach for PageMaker.

I am not so anti-PC as I have let on here, but I won't stand by and let people bad mouth the Mac OS because I KNOW it rocks. NOTHING is easier than web development under PHP, using BBEdit on the Mac, and using NetAtalk under Linux for the file sharing daemon.

Even for ASP development for use under IIS, I still use BBEdit, and Services for Macintosh on NT. Phooey on Visual Interdev. I DO like Visual studio though. But I like Delphi a little better.

If I could only choose ONE OS to use from now on, it would be a hard call between RH Linux, and OS X. If OS X ever becomes available for Intel hardware, then I would be in hog heaven.