The Partnership That Could Have Changed Everything

DesertBlade writes "Bloomberg is reporting that, at one point, Microsoft had considered an Apple/iPod partnership before it released its own MP3 player. Microsoft was apparently displeased with MP3 players partnerships they had already made, notably the Creative and Dell models. This information came from court documents introduced in an antitrust lawsuit from Iowa. From the article: 'Microsoft had been working with partners on music devices for at least a year before Apple introduced the iPod in 2001 and catapulted to a dominant position in the market. Microsoft and its partners failed to come up with compelling hardware and had difficulty getting software to properly connect music collections on computers with their devices.' If this Apple/Microsoft partnership was formed how would this have changed the Microsoft and Apple dynamics?"

Massive Anti-Trust Case

if Apple and M$ had teemed up, wouldn't that just loose the lawyers en mass?

If...

If they teamed up, we would have Windows running on Macs. Oh, wait...

Re:If...

...but Windows running on a Mac is just a PC with a nice case.

Not exactly. It's more like a visitors pass into Hell instead of being a permanent resident - you can always leave when it all becomes too much.

Read down further in the article...

...and you will be treated to the comment that's going to be my next .SIG line here.

"Longhorn is a pig!" -- Jim Allchin

And this was said when Allchin was heading up development on Longhorn. Hilarious if it weren't true, even more hilarious because it is.

Like this:

"Hey! You got chocolate in my peanut butter!"

"You got peanut butter in my chocolate!"

In this case, though, read "strychnine" instead of "peanut butter".

Re:Like this:

The mac commercials would have been great:

1st man: Hi, I'm a Mac!
2nd man: and I'm a PC.
1st man: and we're in a civil partnership!
*Cue immediate censure across US*

What do you get when you combine MS and Apple?

Microsoft in a pink skirt.

And yet, five years on...

...Here we are, with Microsoft having rejected other manufacturers' hardware as deficient, going it alone, and still coming out with a laughably bad product, even after having all that time to learn from both the successes and failures of others.

Admittedly, most of Apple's competition seem to have great difficulty getting their head round what seems to me a very simple proposition (make it nice to use and nice to hold, like an iPod, but make it do stuff an iPod can't), so it's not just Microsoft at fault here, but yet again I find myself wondering what the hell their problem is. Sometimes it seems like they just don't want to get it right.

Although it's probably a good thing that this partnership came about. Because if you think the iPod has a monopoly now, imagine what it would have been like with Microsoft shoving it down everybody's throats. And imagine how little the product wuold have improved over time - I mean, Apple spent the last couple of years sitting on their hands and not implementing relatively trivial features like gapless playback, because they could get away with not bothering. Recently the competition's started to get their act together and they're making noticeable improvements to the iPod line. But we all know what happens when MS is the only show in town, don't we? Not a whole lot, that's what.

Re:And yet, five years on...

It's quite simple. hardware manufactures have been creating products like MSFT creates a product. stuff it full of features work out most of the bugs, ignore the the bulk of the user Interface until the last minute and shove the whole pile of crap out the door.(Office 2007 is an exception, at least it's different)

There is one good thing about the iPhone. Maybe, just maybe someone will realize it's not what features you have and don't have, it's how you use it. cell phones, radios, dvd players, all put features in random locations. How long has voice mail been around? At least Cisco has a visual voice mail option that predates apples but only for landlines. So why haven't any of the other guys thought about it yet? It should be friggin standard, all phones with color screens should be able to do that. yet Every phone available to do requires you to listen to each message separately, wait to it's finished and then delete it. Why can't they list them by phone number called. so you can ignore the call from work while leaving you able to hear the message from your wife telling you to pick something up on the way home. It's not like it takes a genuis to figure this out. yet EVERY electronics company does it.

The real evolution of computers , hardware, and software, will be to make it actually easy to use. It's Apple call to fame. Whether you like the ipod or not, it's not hard to figure out how to use every feature present.

Re:And yet, five years on...

"(make it nice to use and nice to hold, like an iPod, but make it do stuff an iPod can't)" What does the majority of the market want? Observing my fellow college students, they want a shiny, nice to hold DAP that does just one thing: play music (well, now video too, but that's beside the point). A DAP that does stuff that an iPod can't is not what the majority wants, unless you're talking about maybe better battery life or a lower price. That's it. That's everything. Anything else is just extra stuff that not everybody wants. Why do you think the iPod accessory market is so huge?

Lessons learned

I would hope Apple has learned to be wary of any 'partnerships' that Microsoft may offer them. And given how they left all their partners in PlayforSure holding the bag, it looks like nothings really changed.

Musings...

I doubt it would've changed much as whatever they would've come up with, most likley being different than the I-pod is today, wouldn't have been as popular. I'd imagine lawyers woulda have the ultimate field day with connecting the dots for anti-trust violations and M$ and/or Apple would've backed away saying "Just joshin, we'll make humourous commercials instead."

Although the whole "what-if" scenario will still get to those who bother. If anything derived from such a past-possible parternship was indeed sucessful, any more collaboration probably would develop over a much longer-term period of time.

Unless of course, it were to just own everything on the planet, which in the literal sense of the word, M$ aspires to and Apple likes to own hardware and sell it at fairly expensive prices while both buy/own into the flawed concept of DRM.

The thought of a Win-Pod, or I-win (perhaps Irwin?) is funny though.

Needless to say, I'm bored right now ... XD *continues the 9 to 5*

Re:Musings...

Are you kidding? The biggest reason the iPod is popular is because it's flashy, and Steve Jobs can market.

Uh, no. The biggest reason is iTunes, and that the iPod/iTunes combo was very easy to use. Look at the other solutions that were around at the time - the software/syncing procedures absolutely sucked. The software was total crapware - and it was often difficult to navigate a large collection of music on the devices.

Marketing? The original Mac-only generation of the iPod was barely marketed at all. Yet it was still successful - mainly because of iTunes, which was already widely used by Mac users. Remember "Rip, Mix, Burn"? iTunes came first, as part of the "digital hub" - while with other companies, the software was simply an afterthought.

Remember the original reviews? Nobody took the iPod seriously, despite (or perhaps because of) how flashy they looked.

You have a faulty memory. The only people who didn't take it seriously were Apple bashers and slashdot types. Real reviews gave the iPod high marks - with a complaint or two about the price. Aside from the price, serious reviews gave it high marks. Remember that the iPod was the first to offer Firewire syncing. This changed the whole game. Other players used USB 1.1 syncing - which was incredibly sloooow.

The iPod was also the first with the micro-sized HD - other players were either flash-based with pitiful storage capacity, or used larger HDs, which made the units incredibly bulky. So, if you had bought another HD-based player back then, not only did you get a huge unit - but it would take all day to fill with songs over USB 1.1. This made them pretty pointless, as you couldn't easily change the songs stored on the device without significant syncing time.

Oddly enough, the fact that iPods were flashy was enough for consumers to go out and buy them, regardless of the technical reviews.

What do you mean, "regardless of the technical reviews"? the iPod got very good technical reviews, and was in fact far more technically advanced than every other player at the time. Your comments amount to nothing more than revisionist history. Just because CmdrTaco called the iPod "lame" does not mean it was poorly reviewed or received by the market.

If Microsoft had latched on to Apple's product finesse back then, well, they'd be making a little more cash than they do now.

If Microsoft had been involved, they would have insisted on Windows Media Player or some "PlaysForSure" crap and totally screwed up the iPod. Why else would Microsoft partner with Apple, if not to try and dominate the market with their software?

Thank God it didn't happen

We'd probably have gotten a situation where Apple developed a version of the iPod for the Mac, and MS developed one for Windows. My guess is that the Windows version would have been tied into WMP, while Apple would have gone with iTunes. It would have been a mess. I seriously doubt MS would have allowed support for AAC+ on their version, while Apple would have shunned WMA. The market would have been split between the two companies, and the iPod would have likely been a failure. One of the reasons the iPod took off (other than its UI) was the fact that it works across both Macs and PCs. Another reason is the simple design of iTMS. It just works. I seriously doubt that MS could have developed something similar, and they would have stuck their fingers into iTMS just enough to ruin it. Look at the Zune. MS has had years to pick the iPod and iTMS apart, and this is the best they can do? Pathetic.

microsoft may have considered apple...

but I don't think apple would have considered microsoft.

stupidest news article

So... essentially all this news article is saying, or rather... proposing, is "what if Microsoft and Apple teamed up for the iPod."

Really just one thing.

1. There wouldn't be a Zune.

Considering the way the Zune has been selling, that point doesn't even count.

It would have been GO Corp all over again.

FTFA:
Allchin, ... also suggested he talk to Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs to get the iPod to work with Microsoft's media software for fear the iPod would "drive people away from Windows Media Player.''

Why would Apple have agreed to that? What would have been in it for them? In 2003 (when the article seems to indicate the above took place) the iPod was taking off without any help from Microsoft and had been available for Windows since August of 2002. There is no advantage to having the iPod use WMP on Windows machines instead of iTunes. It would have meant that a team of Microsofties would have had to work closely with Apple and likely have had access to privileged information about the iPod to get it to work with WMP.

That sounds an awful lot like many partnerships Microsoft did in the past: They work with a company, get a good look at the company's closely-guarded crown jewels, and then 'change their mind' about doing what the partnership set out to accomplish. And then a little while later they use the information gleaned during the partnership to come up with a competing product and sink the other company, using high-priced lawyers and weasel clauses buried in contracts to avoid any penalty.

They already pulled that bit on Apple once when they developed Windows by copying the Mac while they had access to a few prototypes to develop Mac apps, and then hid behind a terribly vague licensing agreement. I don't think Jobs would have fallen for it again.

~Philly

Correction

I don't think Jobs would have fallen for it again.

Change that to "I don't think Jobs would fall for it," as it was not him who fell for it the first time-- Jobs was gone from Apple in November of 1985 when Sculley signed the agreement with Microsoft.

~Philly

uh?

Microsoft and its partners failed to come up with compelling hardware and had difficulty getting software to properly connect music collections on computers with their devices.'

I'm just wondering why did they have problems connecting to computers? What the voodoo techniques didn't work? They needed more chicken's feet? Surely you connect via USB2 (or other fast connection protocol) and hook into a piece of software that's already cataloged the drive for music files. How is that so hard for a company with so many crack programmers and engineers? I don't understand but then again I didn't RTFA.

Obvious

It would-ve been lame [slashdot.org].

Partnership?

Why is it necessary to 'partner' with Microsoft to run an app on Windows? The last I heard, iTunes runs just fine on Windows. There appears to have been nothing in it for Apple to enter into such an agreement.

Microsoft needs to figure out a few things to do well, leave others to do what they are best at without interference and be happy that those apps will be ported to the Windows platform. The whole idea that a developer has to cut Microsoft in on a piece of the action sounds a bit like the way the mob works and it scares the hell out of everyone.

Well of course it would have...

"If this Apple/Microsoft partnership was formed how would this have changed the Microsoft and Apple dynamics?

Yes, Microsoft would have found a way to screw Apple over like it has with just about every "partner" they have ever had and the two would be locked in a legal battle over it.

Obligatory Grammar Post

... before it released it's own MP3 player.

it's == "it is" (always)
its == belonging to

Well, how fast could they have forced DRM out

I guess my thought would be related to MS' ability to push out DRM, license content, and other stuff. I guess in 2001, I saw no ability on their part to push out ground breaking stuff at any clip. At the time I think it would have been difficult for even MW to come up with a credible DRM platform on the desktop. Further I'm not sure they can execute on a strategy of low end consumer devices where the profit is made in content which they can somehow get in position to license. Yeah, I suppose one might observe that they did this with O/S sw, but I don't think it is the same thing for content. Think about it, although I know given the same innvovative nature as Apple they could have easily convinced BMG, Columbia, etc into licensing, and they would have been great at pressuring the labels, but they would have failed totally on the platform side. Finally based on observation they would have been impatient with the consumer device profit margins. Nah, unless the tiger could have changed it's stripes, they could not have changed the outcome.

What could have changed?

Hm, brown iPods anyone?

Working standards

Microsoft and its partners failed to come up with compelling hardware and had difficulty getting software to properly connect music collections on computers with their devices.

Before USB, I had a handheld computer. It required MS Active Sync. That by itself was not a problem. The problem was the software remained active looking for the device to connect. This was a major problem for everything else I have that uses a RS-232 port. The solution was to abandon Active Sync and let the handheld be it's own island so I could have my serial ports back.

After USB, Flash drives worked quite well and would work on Mac, PC, and Linux. MS desicded to play a do it our way game which crippled some flash players. Some manufactures kept the devices open so they would attach and transfer as a flash drive. Some went so far as to play music transfered in this way and allowed copying to and from the device. This was not in Microsoft's best interest as they wanted full DRM handshake and a one way transfer. You can delete songs off the device, but copying from it is prohibited. This needing someting other than drag and drop, means a special application which may mean Windows only which is a problem in addition to any other USB port driver issues and corrupt handshakes and keys.

Drag and drop worked. Flash player manufactures know that. Making a player that has to change mode to handle connections for Plays for Sure simply added a level of complexity to the device. MS tried arm twisting to drop the complexity of 2 modes of operation. In doing so, it broke compatiblility with everything else. For an example of broken drag and drop, try a Creative Zen. You can set aside space for drag and drop, but it won't play any files there, including non-DRM MP3's.

I bought a Coby flash player. They work fine in drag and drop mode. It will record off the mic or radio and save it as MP3's. I can drag the MP3's off the player. For Coby to have these fine features, they simply dropped support for DRM WMA Plays for Sure content. The player will play MP3's and non-DRM WMA files. The best part is I can save files to it from home on Windows PC's, Linux PC's and at work. It doesn't delete everyting to sync to a new PC unlike Plays for Sure, Zune, or FairPlay crippled things.

The Article That Jumped to Wild Conclusions

I'm sorry, but this is going a little far. All this article says is that MS was trying to develop an mp3 player and that at one point they considered Apple as a partner. Apple would never have signed on for this. In case you haven't noticed, Steve Jobs is just a little bit interested in making the iTunes delivery chain the method for obtaining media content. Do you think that Apple couldn't put out a slick media center wrapped around the Mac Mini or something if they thought it was in their best interest (I mean a real media center with time-shifting TV content, etc., not just streaming a la iTV)? Or that the iPod couldn't support WMA/WMV?

And what would Microsoft have brought to the table anyways? I think it's pretty obvious from the Zune (and most of the other products that MS puts out) that they just don't have the creativity to come up with something as simple and elegant as the iPod, nor do they have the other skills necessary to pull it off. While MS is much, much, much larger (and could have poured tons of cash into it), it's not like Apple was so strapped for funds that they couldn't fund the development.

Now I'm not saying the iPod is perfect or anything, but considering the competition 5 years after launch (and the money that MS has poured into alternatives), it's hard to make a case that Apple could have done much better for themselves (although obviously there are features some of us consumers would like to see added).

Oldnews

M$-iPod prototype [google.com] before releasing the Zune.

It's already been documented what would happen

Just ask YouTube [youtube.com].

This is just sick

Microsoft had the chance to chash in. So why didn't they? Because - did they really think they could do better; in this age where industry-by-industry, segment-by-segment, product-by-product... they're being out-manoeuvred? Come on. It's about FREAKING TIME! (And who said politically-correct was wrong?!?) :P

Great marketing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL89GmwWj-M [youtube.com]

We wouldn't have to worry about global warming...

'cause Hell would've frozen over and counteracted it.

I think everything is going as planned.

In order for microsoft to help keep the courts away from breaking them up they need competition. Apple provides that competition. Unfortunately, their computer sales can't keep them afloat forever, so they have the ipod. But the ipod with itunes is a monopoly and if that hits the courts, apple will probably die as a company. So microsoft released competition to the ipod/itunes monopoly. This will help protect Apple in the music business which keeps Apple alive and microsoft's computer competition going.

Don't you wish you worked at MSFT?

It's revealed that the manager of Vista calls it a pig, and would buy a Mac if he had a choice.

It's also revealed that the company has been violating the terms of the court order stemming from their conviction for breaking federal law.

The result (according to TFA):"Shares of Microsoft rose 11 cents to $31.11 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. They have risen 4.2 percent this month."

This must be what is known as "being able to do no wrong".

Good for them (apples)

Just probably anybody that goes into any cooperation with Microsoft gets kicked in the ass by MS later.

Speaking of multimedia/DRM systems MS once had a program called "PlaysForSure". It was targeted towards hardware manufacturers which produce media players and ones that sell media via Internet. It offered these parties an option to cooperate under MS PlaysForSure umbrella - so hardware manufacturers that produce media players would design their hardware to these "specs", media selling companies would design their services to operate with the devices - all of course using and licensing MS technology called Windows Media. Well looks good - no.

After MS released their Zune it happened that their device does not "PlaysForSure" and cannot connect to other services.

How MSish.

I cannot think of a company that ever succeded in partnering MS. Well maybe exept Intel and Citrix.

it was always about user experience, not functions

Which was Jobs's point all along.

Creative had an ok product, licensed with M$ to be able to play DRM-protected WMP files...only M$ didn't succeed as well as they wanted to get online downloads to use WMP.

What Apple had was not just one great product, but 3, which when combined won the day.

They had an mp3 player that was aesthetically impressive, had new inventions for user simplicity (like the volume/menu wheel, which though faulty at first, got better), and easily licensed for 3rd party accessories so you didn't feel like the only way to use it was through the normal headphones.

They had iTunes the desktop software, with its slick look (though why they insisted on the mac look on a windows box i'll never know, but it seemed to work), a look so impressive that it made the users want to use that as their playback software even without the iPod. Windows Media Player kept changing its look, and kept bumping into wars of codecs and DRM license issues that users simply didn't want to deal with. When prompted to auto-upgrade WMP to a new version, users panic because history with Microsoft software shows that such upgrades often break backwards compatibility or at the very least completely lose all of their existing settings. If upgrading WMP suddenly means you can't watch movies you already have or listen to music you already have, then you won't do it, and upgrades did that with WMP and Real Player a LOT.

Creative's tool was ok for loading stuff onto the box, but it wasn't "right" for actually playing the tunes as the desktop player, so the integration factor wasn't there the way it was with iTunes/iPod.

Finally, they successfully got iTunes the store to work (sounds like Spaceballs: the t-Shirt). One stop shopping, fully integrated into the player. Buy the song, put it into a desktop playlist, sync to the iPod, BAM, new music for 99 cents and i never had to change software anywhere.

Such integration is difficult, but Apple did it where Microsoft never could with their partner relationships as they licensed them at the time.

Hence the Zume. They now know the only way to play on Apple's field is to do that same integration - player, desktop software as load tool and preferred player, and music store all in one.

But they'll never get it...or at least not until the "version 3" that it takes Microsoft to have a success for any product launch.

Actually Allchin did make the call.

And Steve asked him to fuck off

-S

the full Jim Allchin email

Via Googling, I found the full email via http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/ [nwsource.com] at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/libra ry/PX08636.pdf [nwsource.com].

He was complaining about how bad the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra was vs. the iPod back then. To be fair, I'm pretty sure an iTunes install makes you reboot too. I'm guessing he was just pointing that out that in theory, out of the box, if you use WMP, you shouldn't need a reboot.

The analysts were wrong... and so were we

Remember once upon a time even Mac fans such as myself wondered what a better world it might be if Apple had won its suit against Microsoft? This is relevant to the topic at hand because here are the analysts again wondering what a wonderful world it might be if Apple and Microsoft held hands and sang Kumbaya.

Well, I've come to the conclusion that we were wrong. I have to take a step back though, to the time when analysts kept arguing that licensing Mac OS to run on other machines was the way to go. The analysts never understood, as Steve Jobs did, that Apple is not a software company. That where Microsoft believes that the profits are in the software, that only works if your goal is to be the Wal-Mart of the computer industry... brand dominance by quantity, not quality.

We saw what happened when Apple licensed out its OS... it was a total disaster. Apple's strength was not the OS alone. They have always been a hardware company that made an operating system only because it allowed them to manage every level of the user experience in one integrated package. No other PC manufacturers have this advantage, and must instead rely on only the hope that a third party OS manages to work just well enough with zillions of third party apps and drivers so that consumers aren't driven away. Well, they're being driven away now... and they're going to Apple. Maybe not in a flood, but one by one they're popping up at Apple's doorstep because the iPod has shown them what a tightly integrated hardware and OS can do -- when it's done right, anyway.

But could it have been done right if Apple won the suit? I don't think so. By the time it would have happened, Steve Jobs was out of the picture, and Jonathan Ive hadn't yet carved a place as Apple's product design genius. At the time of the 9th Circuit's decision, Spindler was CEO. There's every likelihood that then-bloated and corporatized Apple would have gained some market dominance but would have played it just as complacently as Microsoft has.

The fact is, the underdog position Apple has held has been very good for pushing them to require better design than Microsoft and Apple's PC manufacturing competitors like Dell, Toshiba, HP, etc. It's possible the company's premature financial success, at a time when Spindler and Amelio were more concerned with turning out "beige boxes" just like the next guy, would have pre-empted any return by Steve Jobs and Apple would not have emerged as the brand zeitgeist to which all other companies designs aspire. Today, while they do not dominate the market in terms of sheer volume, they dominate the market in brand perception, regarded as the most desirable brand by consumers across all products of all types. They have a reputation for quality that PC manufacturers do not. They have a following that PC manufacturers do not. So strong is this following that Apple was forced to announce its iPhone before FCC filings because there's a voracious appetite for Apple rumors. Can anyone imagine throngs of consumers digging through FCC filings to be the first to announce what Motorola's next new whiz-bang product is going to be?

So, would a partnership with Microsoft be good for Apple or Microsoft? No. Not only would it risk Apple's name being dragged in the mud by inferior multimedia standards managed by a company that doesn't have half the design aesthetic or QC concerns that Apple NEEDS to have. Microsoft can make a shitty product and sit back and watch people have no choice but to buy it... Apple has to work to impress people ... ESPECIALLY core mac fans whose expectations of Apple have never been higher as evidenced by the post-announcement iPhone backlash.

It wouldn't work for Microsoft either. They've had this fanciful notion that they can make people love their feeble attempts at multimedia domination simply by latching on to Apple's superior product. Where's the benefit for Apple? We already tackled that one. Ok, what happens to both Apple AND Microsoft when customers see

"Change Everything?"

Maybe this partnership would have "changed everything," but definitely for the worse. It's endlessly annoying that some putative interest MS might have had in partnering with Apple is automatically seen by the business press as the salvation or transformation of the project. There's only two contributions MS could have made: show Apple some secrets in installing iTunes + Quicktime on the Windows desktop so that it wouldn't be as buggy as it often is, and standing with Apple to fight the idea of DRMed music. In return, the iPod certainly could have supported wma, and there could have been some coordination between Quicktime and the Windows Media Player so that either might have fed the iPod, and the two media players could have played each other's stuff.

But this is cloudcuckooland. This isn't how Microsoft has ever worked. They make it as difficult as possible to play nice with them. They learn whatever they can from temporary alliances, then they either buy you out or crush you with what they learned. But of course, they didn't learn it from YOU, no.

When windows becomes an open-source project, that's when I'll trust them. Or five years later, after the open-source community has had the chance to pick over their code.

Considered a Partnership? Not Hardly

What a poorly written article. Did this asshat even bother to read the pdf with the emails these quotes were taken from?

In an email chain to a couple of MS employees, expressing his dissatisfaction with a Creative Zen player, he tried out, Jim Allchin said: i think I should talk with Jobs. Right now, I think I should open up a dialog l~or support of the iPOD. Unless something changes, the iPOD will drive people away from WMP.

This is a far cry from Microsoft as a corporation actually considering a partnership. There's a much better article here [nwsource.com], with a link to the actual emails (PDF) [nwsource.com]. That Bloomberg article is a pile of shit.

Re:I know...

How about a MS product that won't give you a BSOD?

I'm glad the mods were wise enough to mod you down - any OS can suffer that - in Unix and Linux it's called a Kernel Panic. And yes, I've seen enough Kernel pancis in Linux to know that it can happen in any OS...

Re:I know...

I haven't seen a BSOD in years in either XP or Linux. Have you considered that you may suck at life?*

*No, I didn't actually mean that.

Re:Bill Gates owns a lot of Apple

??? source? surely you're not referring to the small settlement made a little less than 10 years ago...

Re:Oh please...

complete control of their products and services

Except when it comes to Cingular.

Re:Bill Gates owns a lot of Apple

Bill Gates owns a majority stake of Apple shares. If that's not a partnership, I don't know what is!

Do you have a source for that? If you are talking about the shares of Apple MSFT bought as part of the GUI patent settlement, they sold those shares long before the split.

Re:Steve Jobs wouldn't have allowed this

You left the strikethrough tag on when you wrote the S in 'MS'. I'm not sure how you got it to go vertical, but I'd definitely look into that.

Re:Bill Gates owns a lot of Apple

Interesting assertion considering your website is full of fables.

How about plurals?

I hate "mp3's" "DVD's" "CD's" and their ilk.
Who's with me?

Re:Oh please...

...the only alliances Apple makes with Microsoft are those alliances that they absolutely MUST make..ie...MS Office.

Back in the eighties, Apple commissioned Microsoft to design a spreadsheet app, which was eventually named Excel. Microsoft requested from Apple its' source code to seamlessly integrate the application with the Mac OS desktop environment, and Apple complied. Microsoft then insidiously used the source code to backward engineer (and I do mean backward) the Windows desktop environment.

It didn't take long for Apple to realize what had happened, so they compiled the evidence and filed a lawsuit, which they won in the mid-nineties, after years of litigation. As part of the compensation deal, Microsoft was forced to buy a large amount of Apple stock ($500 million is the number that pops into mind), an investment that is now worth billions.

To sum up: Apple got burned and won in court, Microsoft lost in court and made a ton of money via the fine or penalty or whatever it was supposed to be, while both Excel and Windows went on to rule the world. Sheesh, even when these guys lose, they win.

Re:Bill Gates owns a lot of Apple

That's just not true, and a cursory check at the NASDAQ site reveals he's not even in the top 100 (I stopped looking).

That troll was getting old five years ago, and then it died of natural causes. Let it stay dead.