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Gates Bites Apple Apple and Microsoft partners? No way! Way! By Craig Matsumoto, EE Times Boston -- In what amounted to the Hatfields and the McCoys going into business together, Apple Computer's Steven P. Jobs has announced a multifaceted partnership with Microsoft Corp. and a new board of directors for Apple as part of the foundation on which the ailing Macintosh maker will rebuild its business. The news stunned the computer industry in particular and the business world in general. Striking meaningful partnerships was one plank of Jobs' platform of reenergizing Apple, but no one expected the first of those to be an agreement with Microsoft Corp. The news was greeted with howls of disapproval from a packed house of Macintosh enthusiasts here at their annual convention. Nevertheless, Apple and Microsoft have agreed to:
As part of the deal, Microsoft also agreed to invest $150 million in Apple nonvoting stock at the current market price and agreed to hold the stock for a minimum of three years. "Microsoft will be part of the game with a vested interest in Apple's success," said Jobs. Jobs will be interim chairman even as he retains his posts as CEO and chairman of Pixar. Besides Jobs, the new board consists of two current and three new members: Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle; Jerry York, former CFO of IBM and Chrysler; and Bill Campbell, CEO of Intuit and a former vice president of sales and marketing at Apple. Holdovers are Ed Woolard, CEO of Dupont, and Gareth Chang, president of Hughes International. Four former Apple board members have resigned. York was instrumental in turnaround efforts at both IBM and Chrysler, the latter involving as much as $4 billion in streamlining cuts to make the company more competitive with Japanese auto makers. A CEO and chairman have yet to be selected for Apple, which has slipped in sales from $11.5 billion in 1995 to about $7 billion this year. "This new board has a lot of deep experience in the computer industry," Jobs said. "I think we have a very exciting task to lead Apple back to health." Live via satellite, Gates promised to ship Mac Office 98 by the end of the year. "Work in my career with Steve [Jobs] on the Mac has been among the major milestones. We have 8 million customers now on the Mac, and it's very exciting to renew my commitment to them," Gates said. Over boos from the loyalist crowd, Jobs said, "If Apple is to be healthy, we have to let go of the idea that if Apple wins, Microsoft has to lose." Jobs said Apple needs to take responsibility for its own success and failures and pitched the notion of future Apple/Microsoft collaborations as powerful ways to set de facto standards. "We'll work together more. The industry wants that," Jobs said. "Together Apple and Microsoft make up 100 percent of the desktop-computer market so whatever we do, it's a standard." Jobs said nothing to address ongoing disputes between Apple and its Mac-clone licensees. The cloners report they have heard word from Jobs that he believes cloners only hurt Apple's chances of success. Negotiations over licensees to next-generation Apple technologies such as its upcoming Rhapsody OS have broken down in recent weeks. Frank Huang, chairman of Umax, a Taiwanese conglomerate that is making Mac clones, said he hopes the issues could be resolved in meetings over the next few weeks. (c) CMP Media, Inc (Next article.)
[This article comes from EE Times in a joint cooperative effort with the Motley Fool. For more articles like it, please look at Fool's Gold every weekend or simply go to the Fool's Gold Mine and page through our back issues, which all have clever and cool EE Times articles in them.]
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