Originally posted by Blue Are you saying Hoya buying Pentax is analogous to Bill Gates dragging Apple out of the hole?
Oh boy...
Gates did no such thing.
Microsoft entered into an agreement with Apple to dispense with a couple of ongoing lawsuits filed by Apple against Microsoft. First in 1988 for misuse of Mac GUI elements in upcoming Windows versions.
Apple had previously licensed GUI elements in it's Lisa OS to Microsoft for use in Windows 1.0 . That case was largely dismissed over a protracted period of time. However, in 1995 Apple sued Microsoft again, claiming code from the Window's version of Apple's Quicktime were stolen and placed into several of Microsoft's media programs.
Business | Apple Sues Microsoft, Intel Over Video Software | Seattle Times Newspaper
Microsoft agreed to the purchase of $150 Million of
non-voting shares of Apple stock in 1997. In addition Microsoft agreed to continued development and releases of Office for Mac. In return, Apple agreed to drop the latest lawsuit, ship Mac OS with Internet Explorer for Mac as the default web browser and the two companies agreed to work towards future cooperation in various areas.
Apple was about to welcome Steve Jobs back from exile and it was Jobs who arranged this deal as a win-win for both entities. Apple wasn't doing great in 1997 due to losses stemming from the ill advised licensing of Mac OS to several Mac clone makers. Apple via Jobs worked to buy back those clone licensing rights.
However, Apple had over $ 1 Billion in cash on hand at the time and the $150 Million was more a "vote of confidence" in Apple [for public perception] and a settlement of those lawsuits, rather than the often, falsely claimed "bailout".
$150 Million was pocket change to Gates and again Apple had $ 1.2 Billion in cash. The far more important aspect penned by Jobs was the 5 yr commitment to produce Office for Mac OS in order to calm the 8 Million Mac users running Office at the time.
Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple - CNET News
Jobs had come back to Apple through Apple's purchase of
NeXT Computer inc. and had brought the NeXT OS Mach Micro-Kernel with him. That mico-kernel is the higher brain in Mac OS to this very day.
Microsoft did not pull Apple out of the hole. Steve Jobs did.
Regards,
Mike
we now return you to you regularly scheduled thread...