That deal with Microsoft was one of the first things Jobs did after returning. There's no way Gil Amelio would have or could have gotten the same out of Microsoft. The agreement itself was a significant accomplishment.

Similarly slashing the complex lines of offerings, selling the original colored iMacs at bigger profit margins than Apple had seen in years, etc were all things he pushed in less time than Mayer has been at Yahoo! Of course it's not fair to expect a new CEO of a troubled company to live up to that standard, but it's completely false to say it took him 10 years to "show results".

Just look at Apple's 10k filing from 1999. Net sales were hugely negative in 1997, in the black in 1998 and doubled in 1999.

http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=912057-99-1...