On 1/12/13 18:43 : , Chuck Norcutt wrote:
> Where you're inaccurate:
> "IBM originally created it [OS/2] to compete with Microsoft.."
>
> So, why did Microsoft *suddenly* bail out of OS/2 to go their own way
> with Windows? My boss always said that it was the contract which
> specified that each of us had to pay the other royalties on every copy
> we sold. According to him that contract clause always grated on Bill
> Gates as he hated to pay us royalties... probably because they sold more
> copies than us. But we also did most of the work. For OS/2 Microsoft
> said they could help us out by committing to do 60% of the total
> development work. In fact they never met that committment. They did
> about 40% and IBM had to make up the slack.
>
> Actually, I'm surprised that IBM never sued them since Microsoft
> abruptly broke their development contract with IBM when they pulled out.
> But it's all water over the dam today.
>
> Chuck Norcutt
>
>
Thanks, Chuck. Nice to get it from the inside.
It's been years since I read most of it. I got some of the anecdotes
from Bob Cringely's "Triumph Of The Nerds", and some of that included
interviews with Ballmer and others. But I would expect them to be
biased towards the Microsoft side.
I do seem to remember that the PC project was viewed with disdain from a
lot of the old guard at IBM, guys who used service contracts on big iron
to generate a substantial percentage of their revenue. IIRC, a small,
personal computer made with more or less off-the-shelf parts scared the
mainframe side of the house who could see how it could erode that
service business. Although, if I understand things properly, a big
portion of their revenue today still comes from service and consulting,
be it mainframes or data centers full of IBM servers.
I do remember a couple of attempts by IBM to regain control of the PC
hardware market - PS/2 was, I believe, one of them. Microchannel was
another. They didn't like that they didn't control the ISA standard for
expansion slots, so they created MCA as a proprietary standard that they
could license out. However, as I rememeber, MCA was a PITA since the
driver architecture was pretty strict. I know the couple of MCA pc's I
was responsible for made me very nervous (both were NCR clones). If
anything happened to the floppy drive for that specific card, the chance
of me getting a replacement were slim and I'd be stuck with a boat
anchor. I also seem to remember that the driver installation routines
were fairly convoluted, but that was also over 20 years ago.
--
Paul Braun
Valparaiso, IN
"It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever." - David St. Hubbins
"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life" - Harlan Howard
--
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