You're joking right? It didn't happen in a vacuum, the whole of society is not free. First off, in this case, didn't Microsoft help support apple through it's bad years specifically so they could point to them and try to avoid antitrust litigation?
Secondly, these competitors could only exist due to government internvention. What do you do when the government no longer "meddles" and the big guys start sending in Pinkertons?
You know what worked? Some good, old fashioned competition. And that raised up naturally, through free market.