November 22, 1985: Sculley and Gates Sign Agreement Allowing Microsoft to Use Mac Technology

Gates and Sculley had reached an agreement on October 24 of the previous month that would allow Microsoft to use Mac technology in Windows in exchange for a promise to upgrade Word for the Mac and not to release Excel for the PC until at least 1990.

Those are things that would have happened even without the agreement; a minor update of Word was money in the bank for Microsoft and the Redmond giant is always late with releases.

While the trade was unnecessary and decidedly lopsided, Sculley went ahead and signed the agreement (after he had nearly a month to reflect on it), this day in 1985.