as "Anechoic" pointed out, this was not friendly gesture of MS they were forced into this. "Later testimony in the U.S. D.O.J. Microsoft anti-trust trial revea

as "Anechoic" pointed out, this was not friendly gesture of MS they were forced into this. "Later testimony in the U.S. D.O.J. Microsoft anti-trust trial revealed that, at the time, Apple was threatening Microsoft with a multi-billion dollar lawsuit over the allegedly stolen code, and in return Bill Gates was threatening with the cancellation of Office for the Mac. [2] [3] In August 1997, Apple and Microsoft announced a settlement deal. Apple would drop all current lawsuits, including all lingering issues from the "Look & Feel" lawsuit and the "QuickTime source code" lawsuit, and agree to make Internet Explorer the default browser on the Macintosh unless the user explicitly chose the bundled Netscape browser. In return, Microsoft agreed to continue developing Office, Internet Explorer, and various developer tools and software for the Mac for the next 5 years, and purchase $150 million of non-voting Apple stock. The companies also agreed to mutual collaboration on Java technologies, and to cross-license all existing patents, and patents obtained during the five-year deal, with one another." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company