Patents are here and companies will find a way to exist with either DoJ's help or by acquiring their own patent portfolio. That's not the interesting news here to me.

I think by being offensive and teaming up with Microsoft, Apple is risking being at the losing end of a huge PR and mind share battle here. Microsoft still makes money using their market position but they are no longer in the mind share race.

Apple's business is in a position right now where they aren't a monopoly yet to start abusing it - unlike Microsoft which has so much leverage that losing mind share and having bad PR doesn't do much in terms of being a dent in existing, established business. However, for Apple if the rising tide against their close-ness continues with the help of economical realities and being perceived as a bully in the same league as Microsoft - they could see stagnation.

Apple has really no reason to pick that bullying route - they are always first to create new market categories, they are the most profitable ones, they still have lot of novelty factor going for them and they can compete in every better way if they wanted.