On Feb 12, 2005, at 5:26 PM, Andrew Hime wrote:
quoted 5 lines Walkman wrote:> Walkman wrote:
>> As far as I know microsoft owns lots of apple shares:]
>> So apple IS Microsoft.
>
> non-voting
Actually they own nothing of Apple. In a nutshell, when Steve Jobs
came back to Apple in the late 90s he knew that getting Microsoft
onboard to deliver new products for the Macintosh and continued support
was pivotal to the success of Apple. As a show of good faith, Apple
replaced Netscape with Internet Explorer as the default browser on all
Macs (Apple's superior Safari replaced it a few years ago). Apple also
sold 150 million non-voting shares to Microsoft in return for several
years worth of continued development of Microsoft Office for Mac (it
should be noted that Apple had 1.2 billion in cash reserves at the
time, so the 150 million was merely symbolic). Apple has since bought
back all shares from Microsoft. Apple has several billion dollars in
*cash* reserves and is 100% debt-free. They had the most profitable
quarter in their entire history last quarter. It's safe to say Apple
is doing better than ever. :)
--
Mr. Tangent [the binary police]
www.mrtangent.com
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