[nl]

MS buying Apple stock involved a pretty complicated deal that also involved settling a number of court disputes between the two companies, Apple agreeing to ship Internet Explorer for Mac (rather than Netscape) and MS agreeing to ship Office for at least 5 more years.

At the time and subsequently it was absolutely seen as a lifeline.

For example:

> Providing the biggest sign of hope yet for ailing Apple Computer, Microsoft today announced it was forging a new era of cooperation with its longtime rival that includes an investment of $150 million. [snip] News of the alliance sent Apple's stock up $7 a share, or 35 percent

https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19970806&slug...

[scarface74]

And “their new alliance” was to keep shipping Office for the Mac like they had done for the past decade…

[nl]

Yes and/but there was real concern then that they'd stop supporting it which would have killed Mac use in corporate environments where specific version of office compatibility was a huge issue (As anyone who remembers the Office 2.0 vs Office 6 update on Windows will remember).

[nl]

Unclear why people are disagreeing with this. It's outlined in the DoJ "finding of fact":

> Recognizing the importance of Mac Office to Apple's survival, Microsoft threatened to cancel the product unless Apple compromised on a number of outstanding issues between the companies. One of these issues was the extent to which Apple distributed and promoted Internet Explorer, as opposed to Navigator, with the Mac OS.

> At the end of June 1997, the Microsoft executive in charge of Mac Office, Ben Waldman, sent a message to Gates and Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer, Greg Maffei. The message reflected Waldman's understanding that Microsoft was threatening to cancel Mac Office:

> The pace of our discussions with Apple as well as their recent unsatisfactory response have certainly frustrated a lot of people at Microsoft. The threat to cancel Mac Office 97 is certainly the strongest bargaining point we have, as doing so will do a great deal of harm to Apple immediately. I also believe that Apple is taking this threat pretty seriously

[snip]

> Gates then reported that he had already called Apple's CEO (who at the time was Gil Amelio) to ask "how we should announce the cancellation of Mac Office . . . ."

from https://www.justice.gov/atr/us-v-microsoft-courts-findings-f... paragraph 345 onwards.

Jobs' deal with MS fixed this problem.

[swores]

> As anyone who remembers the Office 2.0 vs Office 6 update on Windows will remember

I think you're misremembering or mistyping the numbers, unless Wikipedia is wrong?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Office

[nl]

Ah it was Word 2.0 vs Word 6.0 (which was roughly Office 3.0 vs Office 4.0)

Word 2.0 shipped on a lot of Windows NT computers with Office 3.0 and these were the days when there weren't forced updates and you had to pay so it hung around for ages.

[swores]

Makes sense!