BOSTON -- Bill Gates was the surprise guest-via satellite-at the Macworld Expo keynote here this morning. An older, wiser Steve Jobs announced a multifaceted partnership with Microsoft Corp. and a new board of directors for Apple Computer here as part of the foundation on which the ailing Macintosh maker will rebuild its business.

The new board consists of two current and four new members including Jobs, who retains his roles as CEO and Chairman of Pixar, as well as three other new faces: Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle; Jerry York, former CFO of IBM and Chrysler; and Bill Campbell, CEO of Intuit and a former vice president of sales and marketing at Apple. Existing board members Ed Woolard, CEO of Dupont, and Gareth Chang, president of Hughes International, retain their seats. Four former Apple board members have resigned their seats.

York was instrumental in turnaround efforts at both IBM and Chrysler, the latter involving as much as $4 billion in streamlining cuts to make the company more competitive with Japanese automakers. A CEO and chairman have yet to be selected for Apple, which has slipped in sales from $11.5 billion in 1995 to about $7 billion this year.

"This new board has a lot of deep experience in the computer industry," Jobs said. "I think we have a very exciting task to lead Apple back to health."

Striking meaningful partnerships was one plank of Jobs' platform of re-energizing Apple, and the first of those is a cooperative pact with Microsoft Corp., which was greeted with howls of disapproval by a packed house of Macintosh enthusiasts here. Under the new partnership, Apple and Microsoft have agreed to:

• cross-license all existing patents and patents that will be filed in the next five years;

• provide the same number of major releases of Microsoft Office on the Macintosh as on Windows over the next five years with the first release planned by the end of this year;

• make Microsoft's Internet Explorer the default Web browser on future Mac OS releases;

• collaborate on ensuring compatibility between the Java Virtual Machines developed by the two companies.

Live via satellite, Gates promised to ship Mac Office 98 by the end of the year. "Work in my career with Steve [Jobs] on the Mac has been among the major milestones. We have 8 million customers now on the Mac, and it's very exciting to renew my commitment to them," Gates said.

Over boos from the loyalist crowd, Jobs said, "If Apple is to be healthy, we have to let go of the idea that if Apple wins, Microsoft has to lose." Jobs said Apple needs to take responsibility for its own success and failures and pitched the notion of future Apple/Microsoft collaborations as powerful ways to set de facto standards. "We'll work together more. The industry wants that," Jobs said. "Together Apple and Microsoft make up 100 percent of the desktop-computer market so whatever we do, it's a standard."

Jobs said nothing today to address ongoing disputes between Apple and its Mac-clone licensees. The cloners report they have heard word from Jobs that he believes cloners only hurt Apple's chances of success.

Negotiations over licensees to next-generation Apple technologies such as its upcoming Rhapsody OS have broken down in recent weeks. Frank Huang, chairman of Umax, a Taiwanese conglomerate that is making Mac clones, said he hopes the issues could be resolved in meetings over the next few weeks.

Another Mac cloner, Power Computing, staged a protest outside the hall where Jobs delivered his keynote. Dressed in black jumpsuits, Power Computing employees handed out signs reading "We Want Choice."

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