Amaya Toman Microsoft is generally regarded as Apple's arch-rival. Among the most famous moments of the apple company, however, is the moment when its then CEO Steve Jobs announced that Microsoft had invested 150 million dollars in Apple. While the move was often presented as an inexplicable gesture of goodwill on the part of Microsoft boss Bill Gates, the financial injection actually benefited both companies.
A win-win deal
Although Apple was really struggling with serious problems at the time, its financial reserves amounted to roughly 1,2 billion - "pocket money" always comes in handy. In "exchange" for a respectable sum of money, Microsoft acquired non-voting shares from Apple. Steve Jobs also agreed to allow the use of MS Internet Explorer on the Mac. At the same time, Apple received both the mentioned financial sum and also a guarantee that Microsoft will support Office for Mac for at least the next five years. One of the most important aspects of the deal was that Apple agreed to drop its long-running lawsuit. This involved Microsoft allegedly copying the look and "overall feel" of the Mac OS, according to Apple. Microsoft, which was under the scrutiny of antitrust authorities at the time, certainly welcomed this.
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Essential MacWorld
In 1997, the MacWorld conference was held in Boston. Steve Jobs officially announced to the world that Microsoft had decided to help Apple financially. It was a major event for Apple in many ways, and Steve Jobs, among other things, became the new – albeit only temporary – CEO of the Cupertino company. Despite the financial help he gave Apple, Bill Gates didn't get a very warm reception at MacWorld. When he appeared on the screen behind Jobs during the teleconference, part of the audience started booing in outrage.
However, MacWorld in 1997 was not exclusively in the spirit of Gates's investment. Jobs also announced a reorganization of Apple's board of directors at the conference. "It was a terrible board, a terrible board," Jobs was quick to criticize. Of the original board members, only Gareth Chang and Edward Woolard Jr., who were involved in ousting Jobs' predecessor, Gil Amelia, remain in their positions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=PEHNrqPkefI
"I agreed that Woolard and Chang would stay," Jobs said in an interview with his biographer, Walter Isaacson. He described Woolard as “one of the best board members I have ever met. He went on to describe Woolard as one of the most supportive and wisest people he had ever met. In contrast, according to Jobs, Chang turned out to be "just a zero." He wasn't terrible, he was just zero," Jobs recounted with self-pity. Mike Markkula, the first major investor and the person who supported Jobs' return to the company, also left Apple at that time. William Campbell from Intuit, Larry Ellison from Oracle, and Jerome York, for example, who worked at IBM and Chrysler, stood on the newly established board of directors. "The old board was tied to the past, and the past was one big failure," Campbell said in a video shown at MacWorld. "The new board brings hope," he added.
Source: cultofmac
