MisterMe said:
My description makes it seem like Apple had the strong arm in the deal? Can you do arithmetic? Apple settled a slam-dump legal case for $150 million in cash plus other terms that resulted in increased profits for Microsoft! Whether you know it or not, Apple had $4-$5 billion with a "b" in cash at the time Microsoft bought the $150 million in stock. How does this imply that Apple had the strong arm in the deal?
Friendly? In my previous post, I said that Apple and Microsoft agreed to do business. I did not say that they agreed to go out for drinks or have a picnic. Come on. Who told you that business relationships have anything to do with friendship?
LOL! "Slam Dump?" Look you need to chill. Maybe strongarm wasn't the correct term, but your version of what happened made it seem like Apple had Microsoft pinned to the wall, caught red-handed, "hand stuck in the cookie jar," get the point? What I was pointing out was, that's not what Mr. Tevanian or any other execs said at the time about the deal.
Apple chose IE over Netscape Communicator as the default web browser for the MacOS. Yes, I remember that. I also know that Apple shipped both browsers with every copy of the MacOS. If you open the Applictions (MacOS 9) folder in the computer you buy tomorrow, you will find the Classic version of IE 5.1 and Netscape Communicator 4.79. All the user had to do was to open the Internet control panel, click the Web tab, and choose Netscape Communicator or any other installed browser from the Default Web Browser pop-up menu. Apple's choice of IE as the default browser for the MacOS in no way limited its users' choices.
Actually when you install OS 9, on the desktop there's an icon that says "Browse the Internet." To the average user who makes no distinction between what browser they use, it didn't make a difference that by default they'd be using Internet Explorer.
Do you remember how pissed Netscape was by the decision to make IE the default browser? Here's a company, Apple Computer, that was allegedly ripped off by the biggest software company in the world, practically snub a company like Netscape, who themselves were struggling against the software giant in the browser wars. Netscape was not happy at all because of that decision.
You need to concentrate less on humor and read more about strategies for success in business. Since that famous Apple/Microsoft deal, Apple has gone nowhere but up. It concentrated its energies on improving its products and not on fighting a enemy with the resources to wait it out. One of the sad facts about adulthood is that we have to deal with people and institutions that we don't like. No one who read Avie Tevanian's testimony in the Microsoft Federal antitrust case can possibly conceive of friendly relationships between Apple and Microsoft. We can conceive of a business relationship.
Oh please, come on lighten up, will you? Can't you take a joke?
Look, who cares about this dumb tangent of why Microsoft did this, or why Steve Jobs did that, I go back to what I originally said and that is, I don't think the Mac platform can remain viable and more importantly expand its userbase by attracting Windows users without the continued support from Microsoft.
The person that started this thread made some valid points, and raised the question of whether Microsoft was going to wrap up everything and leave the Mac platform on its own.
You spend a good amount of time picking apart my arguments and have written extensively, now why don't you try offering your insight in referance to what the original topic of this thread was about.
