It saved the company in that it stopped the hemorrhaging of cash and gave them an actually profitable business model. Without this, they would've gone out of business entirely sometime in the early-mid 90s.
It killed them as a center of innovation. IBM hasn't invented anything worthwhile since the IBM PC in 1981. (No, I don't count Eclipse: IntelliJ idea came out first and better, and yet was eclipsed because IBM could afford to offer their product for free.)
Maybe that's the dilemma that Microsoft now faces. They can embrace their mediocrity, cater to their existing customer base, and continue to milk billions a year from their Winoffice monopoly. Or they can try to innovate. But most of their recent projects seem like they're trying to innovate and the coming out thoroughly mediocre, which isn't really a good combination.