Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple (1997) | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple (1997)

news.cnet.com

39 pointsalexyim38 comments

"Apple has not been the bogeyman to Microsoft in a long time. They are more than happy to have a legitimate threat to their business, and it's called Java."

Out of all the things to end that sentence with, Java was probably the last one I expected.

Really? It was the driving force behind the creation of .NET, and the motivator for the infamous sweaty (Developers)* rant.

Indeed. Java -- more precisely the JVM's promise to code once, run anywhere -- had Microsoft worried in the late '90s. Rightly so, IMO.

How prescient as Java and it's derivatives are probably the biggest danger to apple.

If Microsoft hadn't sold its 1997 $150mm investment in Apple, it would be worth $7.4 billion at close today. That's a 4250% return.

Instead they sold in 2003, at one of AAPL's lowest points. They made less than 20%. (It's hard to pinpoint exactly how much because Apple's SEC filing only indicates that Microsoft sold in Q2 2003, and it doesn't indicate the price agreed.)

How well did an equivalent investment in Microsoft stock either 1997 or 2003, until today fare?

MSFT is basically flat since 2003, and up about 60% since 1997. It did start paying a dividend in 2003, which adds about 15% overall. No multi-thousand percentage returns, though.

I was young, but I remember the cover of Time magazine very well.

http://marcchung.com/mc/world_is_a_better_place.jpg

This headline needs [1997]

FTR, it wasn't so much an "investment" as it was part of a settlement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company

IIRC there was supposedly a private payment upwards of $1 billion as part of the settlement in addition to the $150 million but I can't find a reference right now.

What? A link to this story and no one linked to the legendary video of Bill Gates appearing on the big screen at the Macworld Boston Keynote 1997, looming large over Steve Jobs and the crowd booing?

Here, I will do that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxOp5mBY9IY (skip to 3:30 if you want to see how the investment is received, skip to 4:40 if you want to see Bill Gates)

"Apple, which ended its third quarter with $1.2 billion in cash, will use the additional $150 million to invest in its core markets of education and creative content, Anderson said. He added that the company expects to gain a higher percentage of its revenues from software and services in these core markets in the future."

Interesting how this gives us a bit of insight on the shift in business plans even before the iMac was officially announced. Obviously they picked the correct market to focus on going into the 2000s, but I wonder what made them specifically choose the "education and creative markets" 15 years ago.

It wasn't until Photoshop 2.5 that Adobe even had a Windows version. Look at PageMaker / Quark and it's the same story.

Education and creative markets were the bread and butter of Apple for the 80s and 90s, it's a no brainer business-wise.

At the time this article was written Jobs had been CEO for a month, it's a basic play to reassure the market and boost a falling stock price. If you look at what Apple actually did it was to move into consumer electronics. A transition that is arguably complete with iPad. The machine people consume software with is finally different from the machine they produce software with.

To continue your thought, this was the most brilliant move Jobs made by moving the consumption off the machine that produced. Now jobs can control the distribution from the machine that produces content to the machine that consumes content. He plays middle man, owns the vertical, and collects 30% every time a purchase is made. I wonder how much this strategy evolved from the early days or if the idea of separating content and owning the distribution channels was the strategy from day one. Either way it is clear in hind sight that the play payed off.

On a side note I saw a statistic earlier (reference has been lost) which said Apple sells 10% of consumer computers but captures over 50% of the industry profit. I would search for the reference in a different tab, but I'm on my iPad and can't. Thanks Steve.

I believe the 50% profit figure is for "smart phones". I think DHH mentioned it in a video. Not sure what the primary source is. http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/11/while-rivals-jockey-for-mar...

This is the best reference I can find for it.

They were always focused on the education market, with deep discounts to schools, way before the imac. I think the logic was that you get the kids early, then they buy macs when they grow up, and want to use them at work. Also, if everybody had skills in using macs, then companies would be buying mac rather than IBM PCs.

Could Microsoft's investment be seen as a HUGE strategic blunder?

I don't think Microsoft would have invested had they known Apple would flourish so well. They would rather see a competitor crumble and die.

So why did they invest? And if they hadn't, were there others waiting to bail out Apple? I could google all this but figured there must be many who weren't 10 years old when this happened :)

They were in the thick of their antitrust battle with the federal government, and needed a competitor.

> Could Microsoft's investment be seen as a HUGE strategic blunder?

Oh I don't know. Maybe Microsoft's shares in Apple will be its most valuable asset in another 10 years... (1/2 joking)

they sold those shared long ago.

as "Anechoic" pointed out, this was not friendly gesture of MS they were forced into this.

"Later testimony in the U.S. D.O.J. Microsoft anti-trust trial revealed that, at the time, Apple was threatening Microsoft with a multi-billion dollar lawsuit over the allegedly stolen code, and in return Bill Gates was threatening with the cancellation of Office for the Mac. [2] [3] In August 1997, Apple and Microsoft announced a settlement deal. Apple would drop all current lawsuits, including all lingering issues from the "Look & Feel" lawsuit and the "QuickTime source code" lawsuit, and agree to make Internet Explorer the default browser on the Macintosh unless the user explicitly chose the bundled Netscape browser. In return, Microsoft agreed to continue developing Office, Internet Explorer, and various developer tools and software for the Mac for the next 5 years, and purchase $150 million of non-voting Apple stock. The companies also agreed to mutual collaboration on Java technologies, and to cross-license all existing patents, and patents obtained during the five-year deal, with one another."

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company

"He noted there have been no discussions with Microsoft to license Windows CE, the operating system designed for handheld devices, settop boxes, and other non-PC products."

is my favorite line.

I wonder what would have been if Microsoft hadn't invested in Apple...

Largely nothing. The investment at the time was seen as a public sign that Microsoft wanted Apple to stick around, not a make-or-break deal that could leave Apple crippled if it fell through. That, plus the announcement that Microsoft would continue developing Office for Macintosh, helped assure the public that Apple wasn't going anywhere, at a time when a lot of people feared that Apple had become completely irrelevant, independent of whether Jobs would manage to succeed where Amelio had failed at fixing the immediate problems. I think Microsoft could have not invested and things would be the same. I'm less confident what would've happened if they hadn't pledged to support Office and IE.

So the investment was important, but more for its signalling value than for the money?

That's my feeling on the matter, yes.

There was a good chance that Microsoft would have been split up (due to monopoly concerns).

Well that was a great investment, right? What is it worth now?

What if Adobe had invested back then?

Adobe does exist in part just because Apple invested in them early in its days.

yeah lets remember that next time apple fanboys want to post an article saying AAPL is worht more than MS

How many other startups/companies that MS has invested have given the same rates of return? MS did not lose anything by investing in Apple.

Their gain was two fold

0. escape anti trust scrutiny (the main motivation for the investment)

1. very good return on investment.

How do we know they got a good ROI? It's hard to pin down when they sold it, and for how much. The best information I could find is here:

http://ask.metafilter.com/30833/How-much-of-Apple-Computer-d...

Though you claim that saying AAPL is worth more then MSFT is a sign of fanboy-ism, it can also be used as proof that AAPL is no longer the 'under-dog' that some fanboys still like to portray them as. (i.e. AAPL is now the '800lb Gorilla')

[Nit: Microsoft's NASDAQ symbol is MSFT, not MS. It looks wildly inconsistent to refer to Apple by AAPL, but then drop to MS for Microsoft. ]

Even better, the stock ticker was pronounced "misfit" internally, back in the dark ages when I worked there :-)

"Fanboys" call them the underdog due to their 7-8% market share of the computer market compared to Windows ~90% market share.

I'd still call that an underdog.

Also who is the "you", that you are referring to? Also we are not claiming, we are merely using todays EOD market-cap to show they are worth more, in which case they are. Also Apple has growth in other areas, which are new areas, and MSFT is just suckling the tit of office and the PC's use of Windows software.

/fanboyism

The question is what does it mean to be an underdog? Yes, Apple is an underdog against Microsoft in terms of market share, but few would make the argument that Apple is an underdog against Microsoft in terms of creating a quality OS.

Apple simply has different goals than Microsoft. Apple sells low volume and high margins, Microsoft sells high volume and low margins.

All this underdog talk is bunk.

  > "Fanboys" call them the underdog due to their 7-8% market
  > share of the computer market compared to Windows ~90%
  > market share.
  > 
  > I'd still call that an underdog.

I wouldn't. You're ignoring several factors:

* Even though Microsoft may own 90% of the market, the fact that their company as a whole (which includes other markets) is worth less than Apple is telling. The investors certainly don't think that they are an underdog.

* A few years ago Microsoft own 95% of the market. (i.e. The trend is towards a shrinking strangle-hold on the market)

* The 'market' usually refers to the general PC market which (IIRC) includes corporate purchases. Most corporate purchases for the foreseeable future will probably remain in Microsoft's court, but that doesn't prevent Apple from taking over the personal computer market. [Yea, I know PC stands for 'Personal Computer,' but here we are referring to personal in terms of ownership, instead of personal in terms of desktops vs mainframes.] I would definitely not call Apple the underdog in terms of personal/family computers.

* Apple has great mind-share right now, as well as a number of devices that tie-in well with their Macs. Those devices (iPhone,iPad) are at the top of a lot of people's minds and at the cutting edge of their respective niches. Those devices will probably do well at driving people towards Macs when they next upgrade their desktop/laptop even though that probably isn't their ultimate goal.

* You're ignoring the other markets that Apple is in where they are not the underdog (mp3 players, tablet devices).

  > Also who is the "you", that you are referring to?

To the poster of the comment I was replying to? Maybe I should have phrased it as such:

   Though you claim that saying, "AAPL is worth more then MSFT,"
   is a sign of fanboy-ism,

I was refuting the claim that talking about Apple's worth vs Microsoft's worth is a sign of fanboy-ism.

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