If you can reach all the way back to 1997, you can remember another time when Apple and Microsoft got in bed together... which led to Microsoft putting $150 million into Apple, and squashing an active lawsuit from Apple against Redmond. As a CNET article from the time argued:
"the real benefit for Microsoft is that it gains an ally against Sun Microsystems' Java programming language. "Apple has not been the bogeyman to Microsoft in a long time. They are more than happy to have a legitimate threat to their business, and it's called Java."Of course, there is some irony to how Java now powers Android and that is central to Oracle's suit against Google as well (as they own Sun now)... but two big companies with divergent views will turn to each other to fight a more nimble competitor. Apple and Microsoft teaming up to buy patents is not exactly done with the end user in mind. We've seen this before...
BTW - Thank goodness CNET keeps its archives. I wish every media pub did this.