If Microsoft bailed out Apple that means Microsoft was the quickest to dominate. The hare would dominate the majority of the race, but eventually the tortoise would get there as long as it took.

You should consider reading some about the early days of MS and Apple and their relationship. They both started out small. Microsoft did software and Apple did hardware and software. They both exploded as the PC market exploded. It really wasn't a matter of tortoise and hare back then, it was much more about being in the right place at the right time. They both got lucky that everyone and their mother wanted a PC. Once the explosion was over MS slowed down and Apple went into overdrive.

MS was all about Windows, IE, and Office while Apple tried to be in the cutting edge of everything from PCs and home consoles to digital cameras and software. The Great and Powerfull Steve Wozniak had left the company and Steve Jobs got fired by the same guy he hired. The company was sinking as fast and MS saved them with the money from the slow dependable IBM compatible PC market.

Since after MS saved the day Apple hasn't slowed down, they've just gotten smarter about what races to enter. MS have become more bullish but it's still rare for them to trailblaze. For example MS did not pick a side in the HD formate war and instead stuck with the cheap and dependable DVD as the built in drive for the Xbox 360. Now that Blu-Ray is the clear winner the Nextbox is rumored to include it. Apple puts out a new iPhone or iPad every 6-12 months just to add a new feature or technology so they can stay at the cutting edge.

while Steve Ballmer is a ridiculous person, this article is even more ridiculous.

As long as you have college and univeristy students, you need MS Office. More often then not, you need a laptop on the go and a office PC for your essays. Businesses usually gravitate towards MS for their laptops and PCs. In that regard MS has a 90+ % market share.

Tablets just cant cut it beyond casual note taking.As long as you have students and business.....two things that are NEVER going away, MS is just fine.

The Entertainment and Online services divisions are making regular losses or only small gains, they are currently the weakest sectors. If the Nexbox is a money looser (expensive hardware sold at a loss) from the start it could spell the end of the gaming division in time

MS is a bigger company than sony. And yet  Sony's gaming division has only been making small gains and huge losses. It hasn't disbanded yet. Then you came in here sayingthat the next box would cripple MS to the point of disbanding their gaming division? Haha.. no

This is actually a ridiculous urban legend.

Microsoft bought a measly 7% of Apple ($150 million) in non-voting shares, but this was not the primary financial contribution to Apple's recovery.  The truth is that Apple caught Microsoft with their hand in the patent cookie jar (old habits die hard).  Back then, Office wasn't yet irrelevant for 80% of the world, and Jobs realized that Apple could not afford a drawn out lawsuit, so rather than sue, he negotiated a major multipart deal with Microsoft.  The $150 million investment was just a small piece of it.  There was also a 5-year patent cross-license with Microsoft paying ongoing royalties to Apple (since this amount remained undisclosed, it is rumoured to be much larger than the investment).

By far more significant to Apple was that Microsoft agreed to update Mac Office regularly for the next 5 years (not many people know that a clause in the agreement actually let Microsoft off the hook a couple years early, but they still make a version of Office for Mac today).  This PR value was worth far more to Apple than that token investment.  Meanwhile Microsoft won some concessions from Apple with regard to Internet Explorer and Java (at the time, Microsoft viewed Java and Netscape, not Apple, as the major threats to their hegemony).

Microsoft sold off their shares long ago (some idiots even believe they still own 49% of Apple, which is probably worth more than all of Microsoft now), and Apple mainly stayed afloat during its struggling period by gradually selling off their share of a partnership began in the late '80s that was growing enormously in value: ARM.  Yes, the same processor family that powers iPhones, iPads, 99% of Androids and WinPhones, DS, 3DS, Vita, and Windows RT -- thus arguably the dominant processor on the planet -- was once maybe 40%-owned by Apple (don't have the exact percentage but it was still over 16% in 1999).  Apple used it for the ill-fated Newton and later the not-so-ill-fated iPod.

Ok, random useless computer history trivia time: who knows what ancient line of Apple products actually used a CPU from AMD?  (ATI GPUs do not count.)

not buying into any of it. MS will be fine. MS will find bread and butter some place else.

May be a little exaggerated but this article speaks the truth. Microsoft isn't competitive in the smartphone market and Windows isn't what is used to be. I think the proof of this is in Microsoft starting to move from a software company to a hardware company. It hasn't paid off yet. Surface hasn't taken off and both Xbox and Xbox 360 lost them billions.

LOL @ the thing about selling Xbox division to Sony though.

It wont cripple MS, I didnt say that, don't make stuff up just to make a point

But if MS decide to tighten up, the Entertainment and Online Services may be short listed particularly if the 720 make losses because of subsidised hardware