An important aspect of this is that MS was under heavy scrutiny at that time for anti-competitive behavior, as the US v Microsoft case [0] was being prepared. If Apple had gone bust, MS would effectively have had a desktop OS monopoly, which wouldn't have looked good in this context.
The most important aspect was Microsoft settling code stealing court case with Apple. It never was Microsoft saved Apple story to begin with, even in 1998
"David Boies, attorney for the DoJ, noted that John Warden, for Microsoft, had omitted to quote part of a handwritten note by Fred Anderson, Apple's CFO, in which Anderson wrote that "the [QuickTime] patent dispute was resolved with cross-licence and significant payment to Apple." The payment was $150 million."
An important aspect of this is that MS was under heavy scrutiny at that time for anti-competitive behavior, as the US v Microsoft case [0] was being prepared. If Apple had gone bust, MS would effectively have had a desktop OS monopoly, which wouldn't have looked good in this context.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
The most important aspect was Microsoft settling code stealing court case with Apple. It never was Microsoft saved Apple story to begin with, even in 1998
https://www.theregister.com/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_...
"David Boies, attorney for the DoJ, noted that John Warden, for Microsoft, had omitted to quote part of a handwritten note by Fred Anderson, Apple's CFO, in which Anderson wrote that "the [QuickTime] patent dispute was resolved with cross-licence and significant payment to Apple." The payment was $150 million."