[fjtorres]

The bitter times line wasn't referring to Microsoft but rather to the rude awakening that Apple faces if they do end up under federal oversight.

One effect of the Microsoft lawsuit is that MS staff--from top to bottom--spent years embedding antitrust awareness into their internal processes at a time the computing industry started to pivot towards low-cost/low-cpu power devices. It divided their attention between serving the enterprise (their bread-and-butter), pleasing the federal overseers, and still trying to address emerging markets.
In the tug-of-war that resulted they were late in updating XP, over-reacted on security in crafting XP, failed to respond to Apple's product libel Ad campaign, and were late in updating their gadget/telephony OS.

The issue isn't whether they did well or poorly, financially, but that they were underperforming their demonstrated capability. Financially, the 30% rise in Window pricing provided the funds for the payoffs to the roadkill and politicians so they haven't been hurting and when you factor in the the Office/Sharepoint powerhouse, which is simply unstoppable in the enterprise, and their quiet launch of Azure they have ensured their relevance for the next generation, come what may, but the stock price has been stagnant. The federal oversight effectively turned MS from a fast moving growing tech company into more of a computing utility and their stock is treated as one. Safe and stable, but not a growth stock.
Things started to improve around 2007 but the first half of the decade left them trying to play catchup in several markets. They certainly blew the tablet market, deprecated ebooks, were slow to read the music market's disdain for interoperable DRM, and were late to adapt to netbooks and webcentric computing. Those were all growth markets they underserved because they were playing defense on the enterprise.

Apple is already being accused of moving slowly today and that is without including a federal overseer to check off on future actions at a time when their opponents are putting pressure on their current cash cows and preempting their possible growth market (the mythical Apple iTV). Making them slower to react to outside forces is not going to help them get their mystique back.

We'll know what the feds have in mind eventually but Apple is clearly not eager to submit to oversight of their internal processes. Probably with good reason; there's no telling what else might pop up.