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Microsoft Rues the Day They "Saved" Apple
   

Once upon a time, Steve Jobs and Apple had a sweet computer set up, but  their operating system software only ran on their machines. Microsoft  came along with Windows (which was – ahem – remarkably similar in look  and feel), but it could run on a variety of machines made by different  hardware manufacturers. This increased its market appeal. The once  friendly competitors became fierce rivals and patent lawsuits flew.Eventually,  in the short-term, Microsoft won the battle. With their OS on a wide  array of machines, they dominated the market. Apple was stumbling, and  after settling the lawsuit issues, in 1997 Microsoft bought $150 million  in non-voting Macintosh stock to get the company back to fighting  speed. This was all around the time that Steve Jobs came back as Apple  CEO. Well, the company hasn't looked back since. But has built  steadily, brick by brick. And now, thirteen years later, let's have a  peek at how that stock thing turned out.Via 9To5Mac, we see that  with a stock price of $244.05 on May 26th, Apple's price dwarfs that of  Microsoft who closed the day at $25.01. That in itself is pretty huge,  but if you look further into the numbers, you'll see that Apple is  blowing Microsoft out of the water when it comes to their market cap.  Yesterday saw Cupertino close out with a valuation of $3 Billion more  than Microsoft. That's "Billion" with a B. With the iPod, the  iPhone, and now the iPad, Apple is moving in spheres that Microsoft  would love to emulate but so far has only fallen flat. The Zune has  proved mostly an embarassment, Windows Mobile is an even bigger  embarrassment (have you ever seen a phone with Windows on it? We  haven't), and Microsoft scrapped their slate plans once the iPad hit the  scene. With the future of computing moving to the mobile sphere, unless  Redmond can come up with some dynamic entrance into this market, maybe  Apple will some day come riding to their rescue.
     

http://www.maclife.com/article/news/microsoft_rues_day_they_saved_apple