When Steve Jobs came back to run Apple in summer 1997, he famously told Apple's Mac fans "we need to get away from this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose." He then announced a $150 million investment in the then-struggling Apple by Microsoft - with Bill Gates joining the Macworld Expo announcement via satellite - and a commitment by Microsoft to keep Office for Mac on the market and at parity with the Windows version. That investment went a long way toward calming investor fears and set the stage for Jobs and team to reinvent and reinvigorate the Mac, then create the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad over the next decade.
Fifteen years later, it appears that Microsoft has concluded that for Windows to survive, the iPad has to lose.
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