Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 12:02:17 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How did the MSFT monopoly start? Message-ID: <15214.52633.581653.632317@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <20010806142544.A64348@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> References: <20010806142544.A64348@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>
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j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> types: > We hear all of the stories of how OEMs had to install Windows if they sold > MS-DOS, but how did MSFT get the clout to require this in the first place? > How did they go from being just-another-DOS to having the power to tell OEMs > what they could and could not do, and price-gouging them if they did not > comply? There are probably more answers to this than there are people who were paying attention at the time, so take any answers - including this one - with a grain of salt. Before the microcomputer revolution, IBM was the 800 pound gorilla in the computer market. They pretty much owned the large company mainframe market. They weren't quite so dominant in the minicomputer market, but were still a major player. The PC market was miniscule, and mostly ignored by the mini and mainframe makers. To get an idea of how dominate IBM was, that they ran ads claiming "Nobody was ever fired for buying IBM". I've been told this claim is no longer true. Likewise, they used to be quite proud of having *never* fired anyone. If you weren't performing, they'd quit giving you raises/promotions, and start relocating you regularly - leading to the "I've Been Moved" moniker for the company. If you left and later recommended hardware other than IBM, you could predict that the IBM sales reps would make negative references to your having left IBM. VisiCalc shows up and legitimizes PCs for office work. However, there was no PC from IBM, so few IT managers would approve company money for purchase of a PC, so the market stayed relatively small. Enter the IBM-PC. It's clearly inferior to hardware already on the market and cost far to much. The largest PC retailer of the time - ComputerLand - figured they'd never be able to sell one. However, it's from *IBM*. So all those IT managers start buying them, because "nobody was ever fired for buying IBM." The demand outstrips the supply, the clones start showing up, and the revolution is on. The machines came with an OS called PC-DOS. You could also get CP/M-86, the 8086 version of the previous dominant OS, but it cost extra without providing any extra functionality. PC-DOS came from MSFT. IBM had apparently wanted to purchase it outright, but Gates convinced them to pay a percentage instead. In doing so, Gates stole the revolution from IBM. By maintaining ownership of MS-DOS, Gates could sell a "generic" version - MS-DOS - for the clones. Since the business market was on IBM hardware, the clones needed to be able to run software written for that market. Radio Shack created a "better-than-IBM" compatible - better graphics, etc. - and it died because the available software wouldn't run on it properly. In other words, even then, if you couldn't run the popular software, you were pretty much dead. Thus, IBM's dominance in the mainframe market(*) translated to dominance on the PC hardware, but they were using MSFT software, thus giving MSFT software dominance. FWIW, Gates sold IBM a product he didn't have. He then went out and bought QDOS - the Quick and Dirty OS - from SCC, which had written it for their 8086 S-100 boxes because Digital Research kept delaying CP/M-86. I'm sure others will offer corrections. <mike (*) FWIW, I've seen claims that IBM's hardware dominance came from the IBM 360 series. It was the first computer to have both word operations and byte addressability, making it the first computer that could reasonably do both business and scientific computation. Being able to buy one machine instead of two is a serious advantage, and it obviously succeeded. -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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