I appreciate that Microsoft helped Apple in 1997. So thank you for that MS.
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Apple's Most Famous Rival Turns 50 Today
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Congrats, I was there at the beginning, like many here, investing in both through the up and downs are the stuff dreams are made of. So hope our best times aren’t behind us.
Microsoft today marks its 50th anniversary, during which time it has been one of Apple's longest-standing and most prolific competitors.
Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, starting out as a software company developing a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800. It quickly become central to the personal computing revolution, including through its early collaboration with Apple, where Apple licensed Microsoft's BASIC for the Apple II in 1977.
Microsoft's most significant early involvement with Apple came with the development of applications for the original Macintosh, including Word and Excel, which helped legitimize the Mac as a productivity tool. The 1985 launch of Microsoft Windows, which featured a graphical user interface similar to the Macintosh, prompted accusations from Apple that Microsoft had copied key elements of its design.
The ensuing legal and public disputes would define the rivalry for years. In 1988, Apple filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, claiming infringement of its Macintosh GUI, which it ultimately lost.
Despite the rivalry, Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple in 1997, when the company was in financial crisis following years of declining market share and internal missteps. As part of the agreement, Microsoft committed to continuing development of Office for Mac and making Internet Explorer the default browser on Macintosh systems. During his keynote at Macworld Boston 1997, Steve Jobs announced the deal, stating:
Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, Microsoft and Apple continued to compete on multiple fronts with operating systems, productivity software, mobile devices, and later, cloud services. Apple's resurgence under Jobs was driven by the success of the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, while Microsoft struggled to gain traction with mobile devices like the Windows Phone and Surface. Apple has developed alternatives to Microsoft products, including iWork, but Microsoft Office continues to be prevalent and play an important role on Apple devices, including the Vision Pro.
Today, both companies remained dominant in their respective ecosystems. Microsoft's focus on software licensing, large-scale business use-cases, and enterprise cloud computing with Azure now forms a business model that contrasts sharply with Apple's emphasis on consumer-facing products, hardware-software integration, and user experience.
Article Link: Apple's Most Famous Rival Turns 50 Today
Windows is nothing more than spyware these days.
I have been using Microsoft software for my whole career, they have helped keep a roof over my head and food on the table. So happy birthday Microsoft.
Same. M$ at work, Apple for peace of mind for the family at home and in my humble recording studio.
I'm pretty lightweight on computational needs. I use an iPhone for almost everything outside of work. I'll use an iPad sometimes. Other than that I don't need anything else. If I got another laptop it would be a Chromebook or Pixel tablet with a keyboard running grapheneOS, probably.
That's a good setup and not too far off from where my wife is. At home she uses an iPhone for 90% of her digital life and an ancient iPad 7 when she is on a plane or a video call of some sort. She doesn't know how to use the MacBook Pro at all. And doesn't care to. She is stuck using a poorly configured top spec Surface Book for work which she rages at on the regular. She'd be better off if they could get her set up on an iPad Pro backed by good cloud services. Again, right tool for the right job...
If you are an old man like me, you would have experienced the mind boggling ironic outcome of Apple in 1996-97 when it was about to collapse and ended being the biggest most profitable of all tech companies. To get an idea how bad the situation was, look at WIRED magazine cover from June 1997 below.
To this day I do not understand why Bill Gates saved Apple. (AFAIK: they would have shutdown had MS did not give Apple $150M) . Now Apple is worth more than MS. If I was Bill Gates I would let my competition die, or buy them out. I heard he did it to protect himself from the "monopoly" lawsuit at the time but whatever.
To this day I do not understand why Bill Gates saved Apple. (AFAIK: they would have shutdown had MS did not give Apple $150M) . Now Apple is worth more than MS. If I was Bill Gates I would let my competition die, or buy them out. I heard he did it to protect himself from the "monopoly" lawsuit at the time but whatever.
Oh Boy. I hardly use Windows but here is a bit of my experience.
-Constantly things downloaded and updated in the background.
-Family computer disconnects from Wifi for no reason. You have to go back to settings and choose the Wifi Network and click "Automatic sign in" or whatever to make it work again.
-I did alternation on local MS Excel file that I did not like. I closed the file without saving. When I opened it again it saved the changes. I tried to get it to "last saved" couldn't find it. On Apple you just have to click File->Revert to last saved. I am sure there is a way but as it is with Windows, everything is a hunt online until you find the answer.
-There seems to be 2 places to control Windows from, Settings and Control Panel. What horrific experience.
Microsoft was originally an app making company , this is when they liked Apple. Then they became OS company.
You are wrong. At the dawn of personal computers, everyone was competing to be THE computer or OS to be used by everyone. There were other competitors like Amiga and Atari. Microsoft destroyed all, and some cult fanatics clung on Apple for a "better" user experience and supposedly it was the better multimedia machine.
After the dust settled, MS became the corporate machine and Apple wins in the personal home department. MS doesn't even make money on Windows for home now as I think they give it away for free now. I think they make money off the pre-installed version you get on new machines which the manufacturer pays.
I don’t know what all this truce talk is about. We’re still going to finish them.
Happy Birthday, Microsoft. Thank you for showing Apple how the computing experience is not supposed to be.
You love your country, which is great, but there is a much larger and very prosperous world beyond the US borders.
Many non-US companies have had great success in their own right. Remember RIM (Research in Motion) and their Blackberry success, as just one example?
And like RIM/Blackberry, nothing lasts forever. Even Apple had to focus on music players for a decade to resurrect itself from a failed computer-business model.
Happy Birthday Microsoft.
This article FAILS to specifically mention that the return of Jobs to Apple brought success FIRSTLY and the source for everything [iPod, iMac, iBook, and iPhone] was due to
NeXT OpenStep aka MAC OS X and its KERNEL and SDK/IDE!
without that and the team that built it and created it ... NOTHING ELSE would have followed INCLUDING the XServe and XServe RAID [remnants of the University/Science/Enterprise Desktop/Server NeXT machines failed to be financially successful on.
As an article writer stated before the deal was EVER even KNOWN was that Jobs CONVINCED Gates to invest teh $5 billion and that Jobs would have the entire BOARD replaced as part of the deal and that NeXT OpenStep OS would be the foundation of the new Apple. Gates still CEO at Microsoft at the time was facing HUGE Monopoly scrutiny & on-going investigations amongst 13 US States and districts to have them SPLIT UP ENTIRELY and that WOULD'VE Actually happened with Gates loosing his entire net worth fortune as he had little to now liquid cash!
Jobs had a few connects but knew if that deal was public with agreement for software then Microsoft by definition could NOT be seen as a monopoly ANY further! That time stamp of the deal was VERY limited. Gates had NO CHOICE! He could've and would've given $15 Billion I'm sure.
This article FAILS to specifically mention that the return of Jobs to Apple brought success FIRSTLY and the source for everything [iPod, iMac, iBook, and iPhone] was due to
NeXT OpenStep aka MAC OS X and its KERNEL and SDK/IDE!
without that and the team that built it and created it ... NOTHING ELSE would have followed INCLUDING the XServe and XServe RAID [remnants of the University/Science/Enterprise Desktop/Server NeXT machines failed to be financially successful on.
Eh.
As an article writer stated before the deal was EVER even KNOWN was that Jobs CONVINCED Gates to invest teh $5 billion and that Jobs would have the entire BOARD replaced as part of the deal and that NeXT OpenStep OS would be the foundation of the new Apple. Gates still CEO at Microsoft at the time was facing HUGE Monopoly scrutiny & on-going investigations amongst 13 US States and districts to have them SPLIT UP ENTIRELY and that WOULD'VE Actually happened with Gates loosing his entire net worth fortune as he had little to now liquid cash!
Jobs had a few connects but knew if that deal was public with agreement for software then Microsoft by definition could NOT be seen as a monopoly ANY further! That time stamp of the deal was VERY limited. Gates had NO CHOICE! He could've and would've given $15 Billion I'm sure.
Look about. Many fans, developers and insiders KNOW and KNEW THEN the real deal and attended the OS X PUMA announcement and the actual 1997 deal with Jobs speaking at WWDC Mac WORLD!
Windows is perfect for gaming. Gaming is usually done full screen so I don’t have to see the operating system. I don’t do anything other than gaming so whatever remnants of the spyware I didn’t disable isn’t going to tell them much.
With my eyesight, any phone is too small. I have one of those iPad 7s.
The storage isn't big enough anymore, but performance isn't much different than when I got it in 2021.
(32 GB Refurbished)
Will say it again, give me a full desktop Safari and an iPad is all I need.
An external keyboard, which would be a first for me.
I would also like all the pushbuttons moved directly to the screen.
Can power down the iPad without the pushbutton.
I do not want a Mac. Don't want Windows 11 either. Don't really want Windows anymore.
Just one request Tim and you've got a new 13 inch iPad Air customer, with the keyboard.
One of his greatest strengths because it's so unique. The insight to realize when the war was over and it's time to stop fighting the same battle and move on to a whole new theater. So to speak.
At least half of Microsoft's OSs were okay, starting with W95. Good. 98 bad. Windows Me bad too. XP rocked. Vista was okay.
Windows 7 is still a dream OS. 8/8.1, certified garbage. Windows 10 is okay. 11 is quicker with downloads, but then again, so is the Google Play Store. Not willing to spend over $1000 for a laptop.
That completely removes me from owning a Mac.
Been using tablets since 2017. My go to devices.
I agree that it is lame at best to have both Control Panel and Settings. You occasionally must use Control Panel.
I haven’t used Windows since Win95 turned me to Mac, and launched my career.
Currently the only MS software I use is outlook, but only because my current job requires it. It’s meh at best. All the PCs we use at my current job were replaced with iPads in my department, so…. Yeah.
Happy Birthday though, and thanks for making Office the world’s most effective malware delivery platform! 🥳
(just teasing there)
Currently the only MS software I use is outlook, but only because my current job requires it. It’s meh at best. All the PCs we use at my current job were replaced with iPads in my department, so…. Yeah.
Happy Birthday though, and thanks for making Office the world’s most effective malware delivery platform! 🥳
(just teasing there)
The analogy isn’t perfect but in 50 years, Apple has become Microsoft and Microsoft has become IBM.
Lifelong PC-DOS and Windows user here But I do not understand how the finder in MacOS works, at all.
No clue.
File explorer in Windows by comparison works like every other traditional file manager, Mac is the outlier