3 ms·

What would you believe is true, a court documents or a PR piece on the cover of TIME? No doubt that quote for the press was part of the settlement, just like Mi

• mrandish 1y ago
  I didn't see anything in the linked document saying the transfer of $150M pictured in Time Magazine (and reported independently by many other news outlets) was quid pro quo settlement as part of that lawsuit. That's an alternate hypothesis you're proposing which I have no opinion on. You said "There was no loan" in response to my citing an event that's overwhelmingly accepted as an historical fact by every mainstream source. You're welcome to have a different opinion but my citing an accepted historical fact was not incorrect. Both Jobs and Gates discussed the loan publicly in various interviews together and separately. The loan was secured by equity. It was on both corporation's audited financial statements. Later reporting said Microsoft eventually made money on the transaction which would also have been reflected in their audited financial statements. If you disagree with the widely accepted historical record, feel free to deep dive the financial statements and other public records to overturn the consensus on what happened. In the meantime, I'm not interested in debating your alternate hypothesis about an accepted historical fact which I cited as a minor supporting element in a long list of things supporting a sub-point. Entirely separate from the accepted historical record surrounding the loan, I've always suspected that one reason Gates was willing to give Apple a loan secured by equity in an almost bankrupt company was that it was useful to Microsoft for Apple to survive. The existence of plausible competitive alternatives is one point any company defending an anti-trust action would make. Whereas the DOJ would certainly use the lack of any viable competitive alternatives as another element supporting their anti-trust case. Neither point would have been definitive nor conclusive, just one supporting element out of many. As far as I'm aware, neither Gates nor anyone else involved has ever said this was a reason motivating the loan nor is there any evidence of that but it makes sense given the context. I thought that at the time and, although it was unproven (and unprovable), I think the context was so blindingly obvious, everyone in the industry just accepted that it was probably a key driver motivating the loan. It was simply the smart move for MSFT to make - and to whatever extent Jobs may have alluded to the anti-trust context in his discussions with Gates (if he did), it was savvy of him to realize the DOJ's anti-trust actions created an incentive for MSFT to help ensure Apple's near-term survival and leverage that context to Apple's benefit. That MSFT eventually profited on the transaction was just icing all around.
  • rasz 1y ago
    >I didn't see anything in the linked document saying the transfer of $150M pictured in Time Magazine was quid pro quo settlement That part was in court documents from DOJ probing Microsoft: > handwritten note by Fred Anderson, Apple's CFO, in which Anderson wrote that "the [QuickTime] patent dispute was resolved with cross-licence and significant payment to Apple." The payment was $150 million "handwritten note by Apple's CFO" uncovered in 1998 pretrial discovery
    • mrandish 1y ago
      So the handwritten note literally said $150M? Did it specifically state August 1997? Did it discuss the amount of equity in Apple that MSFT would be getting and the terms for triggering redemption, conversion or repayment of the loan? No? Okay. Huge tech frenemies like MSFT and Apple tend to have one or more lawsuits between them at any given time and that doesn't stop them doing other cooperative deals and transactions. If Steve said to Bill "Hey, I need you to invest in Apple or we're not gonna survive. I'm gonna launch these awesome candy colored Macs and you'll make a shit ton of money. Oh, and BTW, it might also be a good look for you to still have Apple around if that DOJ investigation turns into an anti-trust suit" and then Bill said "Okay Steve, I'll do it but I want a good chunk of equity so let's make it a loan secured by equity in the form of convertible note... oh, and if there's any other legal spats going on between us, let's bundle settling those in too." That would be completely normal and unsurprising. I'd be more surprised if an "all outstanding disputes" clause wasn't included. The transaction was still reflected in their respective audited financials as a LOAN. If the loan T & Cs also included settling any existing lawsuits AND Steve washing Bill's car every other Saturday - that doesn't make it not a LOAN. It's just routine everyday business between two huge companies. Of course the loan had lots of other provisions and conditions and since Apple was near death, any other terms would have been highly favorable to MSFT. However, the existence or favorability of any such conditions have nothing to do with my point - which was about the Amiga computer not surviving the tectonic industry-wide apocalypse of the 90s no matter what Commodore did. The well-documented fact Apple barely survived the 90s and was close to bankruptcy, surviving only by extraordinary external intervention, was only a minor tangential aside. It's irrelevant to the point I was making what that extraordinary external intervention involved other than it being extraordinary. All that matters is that Apple's near-death survival was definitely NOT a plan Commodore could also have used to keep the Amiga platform alive to see Jan 1, 2000. I'm quite done with this off-topic digression and won't be responding further. And may Gail Wellington rest in peace. Every time I met her back in the day, she was a pleasure to be around and nothing but helpful and kind.