Microsoft doesn't save Apple

In the 90s, Steve Jobs did not save Apple from bankruptcy. Microsoft did:

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/08/opinion/the-apple-of-microsoft-s-eye.html

If Bill Gates decides to watch Apple die, without caring if he's viewed as a monopolist, how would the tech industry progress? Would another company do what Apple did? Would Steve Jobs make another company?

He already had - NeXT. Apple had bought it the year before and to be honest NeXT ended up absorbing Apple not the other way around.

If Apple had died then Jobs would either have picked the bones to retrieve the IP rights for the NeXT software and started again or if Apple hadn't bought NeXT, Jobs would have bought Apple with Microsoft's help
 
Microsoft didn't really "save" Apple. IIRC Apple had around $2 billion in cash at the time; $150 million wouldn't make a big difference. What it did do was cause Apple to drop two lawsuits; the "look and feel" one regarding Windows (which they would probably not win) and another one regarding the theft of QuickTime source code to improve Video for Windows (which they probably would win). Microsoft also promised to develop Office for mac for at least 5 more years. They had been threatening to cancel it if Apple when ahead with the lawsuits.

It wouldn't have been in Microsoft's best interest to let Apple go out of business. If the only other vendor of personal computer operating systems didn't exist, United States v. Microsoft would have turned out a lot worse for them.
 

NothingNow

Banned
It wouldn't have been in Microsoft's best interest to let Apple go out of business. If the only other vendor of personal computer operating systems didn't exist, United States v. Microsoft would have turned out a lot worse for them.

Oh yeah, that would've been the anti-trust suit to break the company. Especially if the Halloween Documents ended up in evidence.

A friend and I ended up talking about it once, and ended up concluding that such a lawsuit would not only hurt microsoft, but pretty much the entire industry since the break-up might prevent the NT codebase from being implemented in consumer spaces for years (leaving us all stuck with fucking MS-DOS) but IBM OS/2 would likely see more development, and there'd be at least some move towards more UNIX-clones and derivatives across the industry.

Thinking about it, each one probably being an inhouse version of Linux or UNIX with IBM, HP and other members of The Open Group using derivatives of CDE with at least partial Single Unix System (UNIX 98) Compliance. It'd be a nightmare for Hackers (especially on the security-side,) and the UNIX wars would've reignited, and made Emacs/vi look like a polite disagreement.
 
Top