On August 6 , 1997 , Steve Jobs harbinger that Microsoft made a major investment funds in Apple . Microsoft bought $ 150 million in non - voting Apple stock , promised to keep that stock for three years , and promised to support Microsoft Office on the Mac for at least five class . In exchange , Apple cut down its lawsuit over Windows ripping off its user interface and made Internet Explorer the default option web browser app on the Mac . ( There were a fistful of other terms , including a quislingism on Java , but they are n’t specially material . )
All of this was pre - iPod and even pre - iMac . At the fourth dimension , Apple was busily bleeding money and wason the verge of failure . Shortly after , Apple began the meteoric rise that has sustained it for tenner . From 1998 on , Apple launched a bowed stringed instrument of successes : iMac , iBook , iPod , iTunes Store , and finally iPhone and iPad . ( To be bonnie , we got someflops too . )
When Jobs announced the Microsoft tidy sum , the crowd at Macworld Expo freak out out . Jobs now - splendidly sound out , " We have to let go of a few notion here . We have to allow go of the whim that for Apple to win , Microsoft require to lose . " What is less often quote is the next thing Jobs say : " We have to cover a notion that for Apple to win , Apple has to do a really good line . And if others are gon na aid us , that ’s not bad , because we need all the supporter we can get . And if we screw up and we do n’t do a good problem … it ’s our demerit . … If we require Microsoft Office on the Mac , we ’d well process the party that place it out with a lilliputian turn of gratitude . We ’d like their software package . "
Here ’s video of that portentous promulgation :
For more on that passel , record this writeup fromWired . Also pertinent isthe account of " Here ’s to the Crazy Ones,“the ad effort cite by Jobs at the end of his presentation above .
