We may never know the real story. Steve and Bill used to meet in Bill's jet flying over the ocean so that they could avoid any monitoring as they made deals to benefit each other (the whole "we're competitors" was largely fake - I was in plenty of meetings with Steve and also worked for a direct report of Bill. Their goal was to make each other rich.) It may not be a coincidence that Steve dropped Flash (at the time considered the competitor to Microsoft's CLR in the browser - their bet on the future of controlling future development platforms) and Bill took-over the biggest competitor to the iphone. There were plenty of other similar deals being made between them and the major computer vendors (and, if it isn't obvious, we paid the price by the limited competition and limited choices. Bill and Steve didn't just meet with each other. People who think "free market" is real are both naive and arrogant.)

And in a court of law I will say that I just made all this up.