Microsoft invested $150 million in non-voting shares of Apple stock that they shouldn’t have sold when they did. They also agreed to commit to the platform with new versions of Office. It may have saved Apple, and in return took some antitrust heat off of Microsoft.

Even in the mid 90s, Apple had a sizable, established user base in creative industries like publishing. All BeOS had were some amazing demos. It was designed to be a multimedia platform and had modern features, but not enough mature commercial software. Had an Apple acquisition happened things may have played out differently, but BeOS was seemingly fated to be the Amiga of its time.