7 ms·

The real funny thing is that at first I wasn't sure if they were surprised MS is so valuable or Apple is so valuable. someone who remembers MS being the most v

by ido 8y ago

The real funny thing is that at first I wasn't sure if they were surprised MS is so valuable or Apple is so valuable. someone who remembers MS being the most valuable company in the world & Apple being on the brink of bankruptcy

taneq 8y ago
The wheel turns.
blakesterz 8y ago
Remember that final scene in Pirates of Silicon Valley where it looks like MSFT is going to just destroy Apple? (hopefully remembering correctly) Bill Gates is laughing and Steven Jobs is looking sad and worried. At the time it seemed possible if not inevitable that MSFT would acquire Apple.
- kemiller2002 8y ago
  If I remember correctly around '98 MS did invest a significant amount of money in Apple (purchasing non voting stock). I think they offered to rewrite the Mac version of office too.
  - godelmachine 8y ago
    That’s when Steve Jobs went falling at Bill Gates knees asking for some money, and Mr Gates curtly replied - “Steve, get a market first!”
  - Sebguer 8y ago
    Yep! https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/20/what-ever-became-of-microsofts-150-million-investment-in-apple/ https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/20/what-ever-became-of-micr... To keep them solvent and avoid monopoly concerns. Remember when companies had to worry about that?
    - late2part 8y ago
      I was told there were some rumors or evidence about apple source code in microsoft software... https://www.zdnet.com/article/stop-the-lies-the-day-that-microsoft-saved-apple/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/stop-the-lies-the-day-that-mic... A few months later, Apple added Intel and Microsoft to the action. In later testimony, Apple showed that thousands of lines of "significant programming code" for video acceleration used in Windows came directly from Apple's QuickTime for Windows. A couple of years go by and the companies were all kisses and hugs for the keynote address to the Boston Macworld Expo. So, is there any ring of "irony" here as the reports make it sound? Not much to my ears. Microsoft and Intel got their fingers caught in the source code and paid for it. Microsoft hired a larger team of former Apple programers, which didn't help Apple directly, and Microsoft Office returned to being real Mac programs instead of lackluster ports.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - at-fates-hands 8y ago
        > A couple of years go by and the companies were all kisses and hugs for the keynote address to the Boston Macworld Expo. Totally remember seeing the video for that and the booing and gasping in the crowd was hilarious. It was like Lando Calrissian in Empire Strikes back where he tells Han and the group he just made a deal to keep the Empire out for good and then the door opens and there's Vader sitting at the head of the conference table.
        bunnycorn 8y ago
        Anyway, that quote from Steve Jobs was really great "for Apple to win, Microsoft doesn't has to lose". He was certainly right. And, in my opinion, if anyone has to learn anything from Steve Jobs's entrepreneurial life, it's exactly that.
  - cronix 8y ago
    Here's the announcement from Macworld '97. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxOp5mBY9IY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxOp5mBY9IY
    - projektfu 8y ago
      - Reciprocal patent licensing for next 5 years - Continued development of Office for Mac for minimum 5 years - Internet Explorer default browser on Macintosh - Collaborate on Java - Microsoft buys $150 million in non-voting shares of Apple at market price. IIRC, the share price at the time was around $1. EDIT: apparently around $8.25.
    - johnchristopher 8y ago
      That's really interesting to see how he managed to pull off that presentation and keep it on track. More impressive than the "and here's the iPhone" in my opinion.
- Angostura 8y ago
  The monopoly issues would have prevented acquisition.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > The monopoly issues would have prevented acquisition. Or forced selling off Apple's OS business, which would have been more dangerous to Microsoft if it wasn't tied to a firm that was dedicated to using it to sell hardware, and thus committed to restricting it to first-party hardware.
    - kalleboo 8y ago
      MacOS 9 was crap though I'm saying that as someone who loved it so much he literally used it today https://imgur.com/a/zhmi6cP https://imgur.com/a/zhmi6cP But the reality was that Apple had failed with Copland and had been shopping around for OSes because their OS was so bad. Apple's other spinoffs (Claris, Newton, Taligent) were also all failures, so there was really no risk that an Apple OS spinoff would get any traction. Even NeXT (the OS X we know today, and the brainchild of Steve Jobs) was on death's doorstep.
      - sjwright 8y ago
        As an aside, it's truly remarkable that the amalgam of two near-dead companies (Apple, NeXT) could prove to be such a perfect mix of technology, skills, market and capital that it was able to grow into one of the world's largest and most successful companies. Obviously it's not so simple—much of the credit goes to Jobs with the scar tissue of age and experience—but it's also true to say most of the essential puzzle pieces of success existed in one or other of these two companies. Apple had market share, loyal users, brand recognition, Jony Ive, and some good technologies; NeXT had Steve Jobs and a fully fleshed out UNIX operating system with all the trimmings.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
agumonkey 8y ago
It's just that Apple led the last decade in many fields while MS was barely sustaining it's own. Different exercises, none is easy, but one is ultra visible and impact people emotion a lot more.
- belltaco 8y ago
  Barely sustaining if you only look at the public and flashy side of their business. They were still pulling in a lot of revenue and profit and were actually much more diversified that people gave them credit for.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    True but that action in the shadow is what fuels the surprise. The consumer side has seen Surface (great job), but Windows is weird, Office can't improve much. They got the online version working neat. It's all cool, but it's not as ~innovative (I know apple knows how to make it even more flashy) as iphones and the likes.
    - mywittyname 8y ago
      Office continues to be an ATM. LinkedIn is far more profitable than you'd think. Azure has sustained double-digit YoY growth for several years. Even lowly Windows 10 is seeing modest growth. They don't need to innovate to continue to print money for shareholders. The company is so diverse that they can write off a few billion in loses on, say, a phone division, and still enjoy double-digit revenue growth.
- at-fates-hands 8y ago
  I believe you're referring to the "lost decade" under Ballmer where the stack ranking of employees led to a precipitous decline since all the teams were fighting each other and sabotaging each other's work. 2000-2010 was brutal on Microsoft.
  - skc 8y ago
SilasX 8y ago
Ditto! I remember around '97 seriously believing Apple wouldn't last much longer, and giving a resigned "you-poor-thing" sigh when a) they released a flashy desktop, or b) MS/Gates made that investment in them, or c) some Saudi investor "who always turns companies around" bought a stake.
- gowld 8y ago
  The irony of (b) is that MS invested in Apple as a way to maintain a semblance of competition to shake of antitrust enforcement, and then Apple ate MS's lunch in whole segments. If MS let Apple die then, and used traditional lobbying to avoid antitrust sanction, iOS might not exist and we'd all be on our Zune tablets.
  - SilasX 8y ago
    I can see why MS would want to keep Apple alive, but wouldn't the shared ownership raise even worse antitrust fears?
    - mohamedattahri 8y ago
      I guess regulators are more tolerant when you're actually trying to save a competitor with a really fair deal, rather than purely attempting a takeover to kill them.
      - WorldMaker 8y ago
        I believe the other regulatory trick that made it work is "non-voting shares". Microsoft had a big monetary stake but was given no proportionate power in the company's board.
    - RobLach 8y ago
      Explicitly took non-voting shares to not rattle too much.
  - damon_c 8y ago
    Seems like an outcome the authors of antitrust laws would have been happy about right?

by ido 8y ago

taneq 8y ago

The wheel turns.

blakesterz 8y ago

Remember that final scene in Pirates of Silicon Valley where it looks like MSFT is going to just destroy Apple? (hopefully remembering correctly) Bill Gates is laughing and Steven Jobs is looking sad and worried. At the time it seemed possible if not inevitable that MSFT would acquire Apple.

kemiller2002 8y ago
If I remember correctly around '98 MS did invest a significant amount of money in Apple (purchasing non voting stock). I think they offered to rewrite the Mac version of office too.
- godelmachine 8y ago
  That’s when Steve Jobs went falling at Bill Gates knees asking for some money, and Mr Gates curtly replied - “Steve, get a market first!”
- Sebguer 8y ago
  Yep! https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/20/what-ever-became-of-microsofts-150-million-investment-in-apple/ https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/20/what-ever-became-of-micr... To keep them solvent and avoid monopoly concerns. Remember when companies had to worry about that?
  - late2part 8y ago
    I was told there were some rumors or evidence about apple source code in microsoft software... https://www.zdnet.com/article/stop-the-lies-the-day-that-microsoft-saved-apple/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/stop-the-lies-the-day-that-mic... A few months later, Apple added Intel and Microsoft to the action. In later testimony, Apple showed that thousands of lines of "significant programming code" for video acceleration used in Windows came directly from Apple's QuickTime for Windows. A couple of years go by and the companies were all kisses and hugs for the keynote address to the Boston Macworld Expo. So, is there any ring of "irony" here as the reports make it sound? Not much to my ears. Microsoft and Intel got their fingers caught in the source code and paid for it. Microsoft hired a larger team of former Apple programers, which didn't help Apple directly, and Microsoft Office returned to being real Mac programs instead of lackluster ports.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - at-fates-hands 8y ago
      > A couple of years go by and the companies were all kisses and hugs for the keynote address to the Boston Macworld Expo. Totally remember seeing the video for that and the booing and gasping in the crowd was hilarious. It was like Lando Calrissian in Empire Strikes back where he tells Han and the group he just made a deal to keep the Empire out for good and then the door opens and there's Vader sitting at the head of the conference table.
      - bunnycorn 8y ago
        Anyway, that quote from Steve Jobs was really great "for Apple to win, Microsoft doesn't has to lose". He was certainly right. And, in my opinion, if anyone has to learn anything from Steve Jobs's entrepreneurial life, it's exactly that.
- cronix 8y ago
  Here's the announcement from Macworld '97. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxOp5mBY9IY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxOp5mBY9IY
  - projektfu 8y ago
    - Reciprocal patent licensing for next 5 years - Continued development of Office for Mac for minimum 5 years - Internet Explorer default browser on Macintosh - Collaborate on Java - Microsoft buys $150 million in non-voting shares of Apple at market price. IIRC, the share price at the time was around $1. EDIT: apparently around $8.25.
  - johnchristopher 8y ago
    That's really interesting to see how he managed to pull off that presentation and keep it on track. More impressive than the "and here's the iPhone" in my opinion.
Angostura 8y ago
The monopoly issues would have prevented acquisition.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > The monopoly issues would have prevented acquisition. Or forced selling off Apple's OS business, which would have been more dangerous to Microsoft if it wasn't tied to a firm that was dedicated to using it to sell hardware, and thus committed to restricting it to first-party hardware.
  - kalleboo 8y ago
    MacOS 9 was crap though I'm saying that as someone who loved it so much he literally used it today https://imgur.com/a/zhmi6cP https://imgur.com/a/zhmi6cP But the reality was that Apple had failed with Copland and had been shopping around for OSes because their OS was so bad. Apple's other spinoffs (Claris, Newton, Taligent) were also all failures, so there was really no risk that an Apple OS spinoff would get any traction. Even NeXT (the OS X we know today, and the brainchild of Steve Jobs) was on death's doorstep.
    - sjwright 8y ago
      As an aside, it's truly remarkable that the amalgam of two near-dead companies (Apple, NeXT) could prove to be such a perfect mix of technology, skills, market and capital that it was able to grow into one of the world's largest and most successful companies. Obviously it's not so simple—much of the credit goes to Jobs with the scar tissue of age and experience—but it's also true to say most of the essential puzzle pieces of success existed in one or other of these two companies. Apple had market share, loyal users, brand recognition, Jony Ive, and some good technologies; NeXT had Steve Jobs and a fully fleshed out UNIX operating system with all the trimmings.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

agumonkey 8y ago

It's just that Apple led the last decade in many fields while MS was barely sustaining it's own. Different exercises, none is easy, but one is ultra visible and impact people emotion a lot more.

belltaco 8y ago
Barely sustaining if you only look at the public and flashy side of their business. They were still pulling in a lot of revenue and profit and were actually much more diversified that people gave them credit for.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  True but that action in the shadow is what fuels the surprise. The consumer side has seen Surface (great job), but Windows is weird, Office can't improve much. They got the online version working neat. It's all cool, but it's not as ~innovative (I know apple knows how to make it even more flashy) as iphones and the likes.
  - mywittyname 8y ago
    Office continues to be an ATM. LinkedIn is far more profitable than you'd think. Azure has sustained double-digit YoY growth for several years. Even lowly Windows 10 is seeing modest growth. They don't need to innovate to continue to print money for shareholders. The company is so diverse that they can write off a few billion in loses on, say, a phone division, and still enjoy double-digit revenue growth.
at-fates-hands 8y ago
I believe you're referring to the "lost decade" under Ballmer where the stack ranking of employees led to a precipitous decline since all the teams were fighting each other and sabotaging each other's work. 2000-2010 was brutal on Microsoft.
- skc 8y ago

SilasX 8y ago

Ditto! I remember around '97 seriously believing Apple wouldn't last much longer, and giving a resigned "you-poor-thing" sigh when a) they released a flashy desktop, or b) MS/Gates made that investment in them, or c) some Saudi investor "who always turns companies around" bought a stake.

gowld 8y ago
The irony of (b) is that MS invested in Apple as a way to maintain a semblance of competition to shake of antitrust enforcement, and then Apple ate MS's lunch in whole segments. If MS let Apple die then, and used traditional lobbying to avoid antitrust sanction, iOS might not exist and we'd all be on our Zune tablets.
- SilasX 8y ago
  I can see why MS would want to keep Apple alive, but wouldn't the shared ownership raise even worse antitrust fears?
  - mohamedattahri 8y ago
    I guess regulators are more tolerant when you're actually trying to save a competitor with a really fair deal, rather than purely attempting a takeover to kill them.
    - WorldMaker 8y ago
      I believe the other regulatory trick that made it work is "non-voting shares". Microsoft had a big monetary stake but was given no proportionate power in the company's board.
  - RobLach 8y ago
    Explicitly took non-voting shares to not rattle too much.
- damon_c 8y ago
  Seems like an outcome the authors of antitrust laws would have been happy about right?