That's one possible explanation. I think a much more plausible explanation was that Steve Jobs needed a significant amount of capital infusion to turn-around Apple but he needed the terms to be reasonable, which was why he leveraged on his longstanding friendship with Bill Gates even though they were (unequal) competitors at that time.
It's next to impossible to get any form of capital for a dying company, whether debt or equity without having cut-throat clauses included to protect the investors' capital.
"In a remarkable feat of negotiating legerdemain, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs got needed cash — in return for non-voting shares — and an assurance that Microsoft would support Office for the Mac for five years. Apple agreed to drop a long-running lawsuit in which they alleged Microsoft copied the look and feel of the Mac OS for Windows and to make Internet Explorer the default browser on its computers — but not the only choice."
The economic behemoths regularly change shape, form, and function and others replace them. Believing that we're at the final result of everything seems misguided at best.