This One Story Tells You How Much Has Changed For Apple And Microsoft In 15 Years en-us Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500 Mon, 29 Dec 2014 04:12:31 -0500 Owen Thomas JessiDarko Thu, 13 Dec 2012 13:49:28 -0500 Business Insider doesn't care what the facts are. It's run by a bunch of liars who put spin on everything. This site is as bad as the worst tabloid. Bashing Apple results in page views, its pure linkbait. I meant to put them in my /etc/hosts routed to, but forgot, and here I am, reading stupidity from a piece of shit by the name of Owen Thomas, who is literally a whore-- no wait, that's not right-- whores still have integrity and honor. JessiDarko Thu, 13 Dec 2012 13:46:39 -0500 He's gloating, and of course the joke is on him since he got all the facts wrong, like a typical mindless apple hater... but then, this is BI, where apple bashing is how they whore for money. JessiDarko Thu, 13 Dec 2012 13:45:30 -0500 A big part of the reason that investing in Apple at the time was such a good deal was the Billions in patent royalties that Microsoft started paying as part of this deal. The margin on royalties is near %100 (you have to pay someone to count the money, that's about it) so it all went right to Apple's bottom line. Oh, I'm sure Apple was so humiliated to have such a rich victory! LOL! JessiDarko Thu, 13 Dec 2012 13:43:13 -0500 So many falsehoods here. It's one thing to have a wrong opinion, but quite a different to lie about the facts. Apple was not cash strapped-- they had over $1B in cash at the time. The $150M "investment" was in restricted stock, and was a token. Apple wasn't "Forced" to settle a patent suite, Microsoft was caught red handed and ended up paying Apple many billions of dollars over the next 5 years.... its part of the way Apple suddenly became profitable. That patent cross-licesning agreement is still in place, which is why Microsoft can legitimately ship multi-touch on its phones. The real genius of this is that Jobs knew that even with MSFT getting a patent license, they would still not be able to compete effectively, and here it is, 15 years later and he's been proven right. Plus Apple got access to some good MSFT patents in the deal. Who knows if MSFT is still paying Apple for the priviledge, but far from "humiliated", Apple won the day here--- this was an Apple victory. But unlike Apple haters and ignorant journalists 15 years later, Apple didn't gloat. The pathetic thing is, you're gloating yet it was Apple that won.... so you just show your own ignorance. Not to mention bigotry. Sad, really. Guy McLimore Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:29:34 -0500 "plenty of veterans who remember the day when a humiliated Apple had to take Microsoft's money and settle a patent dispute." No, no and no. I was there at that event. (That's me in the blue shirt shown in the clip at the 7:30 mark.) Apple was neither humiliated or forced to take Microsoft's money. The deal was a shrewd move by Steve Jobs (who had only recently returned to Apple) to give the company time to get reoriented to his vision. Apple didn't need the investment money, really -- but it was a good way to assure that Microsoft had a stake in keeping Apple around for a least the short term. Microsoft valued the Mac software market, and Jobs wanted to guarantee they would do so. The five-year deal on Microsoft Office made sure that would happen, and gave Apple time to establish the iMac as the most radically different computer on the market -- something which changed that market forever. We see the brilliance of that move today, with Apple established firmly enough that Microsoft now needs Apple far more than Apple needs Microsoft. There was nothing humiliating about it. Steve laughed all the way to the bank. Jonno Wed, 12 Dec 2012 08:59:14 -0500 Sorry MS, whether ifanboi or not, he's right. Windows 8 on the desktop is a FIASCO of EPIC proportions. I've got NO Apple products - so I'm clearly not an ifanboi, huh? I replaced my Win 7 with Win 8, and tried to get used to the new experience on my desktop PC. After a week of sheer frustration at every turn, and not seeing any brilliant user advantage for me, I got rid of this crapware and HAPPILY went back to Win 7 - which I now appreciate even more, is a very nice and stable program that does EVERYTHING I need. Win7 is the new XP - reliable, stable, does everything well. There is no need - EVER - to upgrade to Win8. Equals BIG problem for MS and Balmer. Win8 SP1 better be the game-changer that Win8 should have been. And it better come damn soon. Or Balmer is TOAST! freddy bee Wed, 12 Dec 2012 08:09:00 -0500 like it or not, the reality is that not everyone can afford a mac... a Wed, 12 Dec 2012 07:31:01 -0500 They sold over time garnering around 1 Billion - certainly not a bad use of the money... And it would probably have hurt them to have held. MS Wed, 12 Dec 2012 00:27:34 -0500 This article is not about Windows 8. Save your anti-Microsoft rant for other article that Apple and/or Google biased write an article on Window 8. PS: Your payment from Apple in the mail ;) MS Wed, 12 Dec 2012 00:18:58 -0500 So what's the point of your article? msft's plan for success Tue, 11 Dec 2012 23:31:48 -0500 Microsoft's (Steve Ballmer's) Checklist for Success 1. Build a business in which my products relies solely on OEM's. Thanks, Bill Gates!... CHECK 2. Drive my company's stock prices down to half their worth from when I took over as CEO... CHECK 3.Fail to foresee the coming of the mobile computing era... CHECK 4. Laugh at my competitors as they develop and release paradigm shifting hardware and software, and even create a new market (tablet) which proves wildly popular... CHECK 5. Remove my company from the mobile market by not putting serious efforts into developing a viable mobile OS (Win 7) that gains only less than 2% marketshare, and is lumped into the 'Other' categories on pie charts. 6. Realize that the mobile market IS essential to the survival of my company, and put forth a serious effort to create a quality mobile OS (Win 8)... CHECK ( I actually do give props for this) 7. Be named "Worst CEO" of any publicly traded company in America by Forbes Magazine. 8. Alienate the very same OEM's upon which my business was built by announcing that I am entering the hardware business, and am going to create competing products... CHECK 9. Make my OEM's turned competitors reconsider their level of commitment to producing products that will run my OS that I am so dependent on for the future of my company. 10. Fail to realize that my OEM's now turned competitors do actually have a choice to continue to make their products without me, and that they can now choose to fully focus their hardware development to exclusively run Android OS, which doesn't charge licensing fees and does have an established mobile marketshare... CHECK 11. Fail to realize that now that I've ticked off my OEM's, and that they can shift their focus to Android, that now they have no incentive to create a quality product for Win 8, thus resulting in damaging the image of Win 8 on mobile devices, thus leading to fewer sales, and not much of a gain in marketshare, if any... CHECK 12. Sit back, relax, and pat myself on the back because of the great leadership I am providing for my company. adam22 Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:47:03 -0500 i don't think they can pull on this trip, people will buy more macs :) Hose Kewwit Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:38:20 -0500 And the point of this article is what exactly? It seems pretty off. Without the proper productivity applications on IPads (in a smaller sense iPhones) history would most likely repeat itself, especially if Apple wants their devices in the corporate segment. Without the proper compatibility corp. would never approve, and even in BYOD cultures it would be useless without being able to work on Word/Excel/PPT and basically would be an office gadget as opposed to a productivity tool...sorry but the Mac versions are not the same and are not 100% compatible (have used them for over 7 years and am always switching back to Office). Businesses which already have Apple ingrained in their structure of course would have no issues though. freddy bee Tue, 11 Dec 2012 21:16:17 -0500 someone suggested that it'd be great if msft could find a way to charge aapl 30% for every iTunes transaction occurring on a windows-based machine. that would be beautiful if they could swing it now that the DOJ oversight has passed. fingers crossed they find a way to make this happen. Beltway Greg Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:55:14 -0500 $150M in 1997? Approx. $20B if they had held? here we go again Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:40:45 -0500 Here we go again... Microsoft is stabbing its OEM partners in the back just like they did in the past with the "plays for sure" and the zune debacle. For anyone that doesn't remember the history on this. A few years ago Microsoft saw what Apple was doing with their ipod and in typical Microsoft fashion set out to try and copy them. In the beginning Microsoft went into partnership with several OEMs to create devices for Microsoft's "plays for sure" music system. Well, as is typical, customers rejected Microsoft's lame music marketplace and the sales on these items were horrible. Microsoft decided that the reason nobody wanted to buy their "plays for sure" music marketplace was all because of the OEMs. So Microsoft in their arrogance stabbed their partners in the back by coming out with their own device...... the ZUNE.... The Zune of course was also a total flop, and Microsoft eventually ended up canceling it in shame. You see, customers didn't reject those original "plays for sure" products because of the hardware. They rejected it because Microsoft's software sucks donkey schlong. So here we are once again in a similar situation... Microsoft believes that customers are rejecting Windows 8 because of the OEMs..... So, once again Microsoft has decided to stab its partners in the back by pushing their own device, the Microsoft Surface. It was not too long ago that Microsoft was assuring it's "partners" that Microsoft would only sell the Surface online and in it's own stores. Microsoft assured their "partners" that they would not screw them over by selling the Surface outside of this limited distribution. Microsoft claimed that they only wanted to follow in Google's footsteps with a Nexus-like showcase device. Well, well well... history repeats itself once again. Microsoft sure did turn on the OEMs quick this time. This must be some kind of backstabbing record. As we all know, Microsoft 8 is not failing because of the hardware. It is failing, just as "plays for sure" did, because it sucks. So, once again we will all get to bare witness to another massive fail by Microsoft as their Zunetab is acknowledged as a total flop. I'm guessing this will happen by the end of 2013. At which time Microsoft in desperation will slash the Zunetab down to $199. So they can lose money on every sale. Luckily for Microsoft so few people will buy it that the loses may be less than what they typically lose on Bing each year.