@TG:
Although MS-DOS was the dominant operating system being used by IBM, it was not the only one, and certainly never the best. But Microsoft made sure that their dominance in the OS market for IBM PCs quickly turned into a near-monopoly. They devised a licensing agreement that required any company which desired to use MS-DOS on some of their computers pay Microsoft for each computer they sold, regardless of whether MS-DOS was on that specific computer. Since MS-DOS was already the dominant operating system, the business model of the majority of the IBM clone manufacturers depended on selling it with some of their computers. They were therefore left with no choice but to agree to Microsoft’s licensing plan.
First of all, you always have a choice. You are correct when you say that DOS was not the only OS available on IBM’s line of computers. But Microsoft realized what the other companies were doing wrong. As the other creators of Operating Systems were busy charging $400 and above for software that wasn’t worth it, Microsoft took a risk and charged less than a $100. This now made it very affordable to buy a computer, and thus thrusted Microsoft ahead of the competition.
@TG:
This was shown Microsoft’s abilities were shown in 1985, where they did steal Windows from Apple. At the time, MS were the dominant software provider for IBM clones as well as for the Macintosh. Although Microsoft was putting down the Macintosh by claiming that it was for lazy people and that it was less powerful than MS-DOS, they were at the same time well aware of its superiority in both ease of use and functionality, and seeking to mimic it in their own operating system. Microsoft approached Apple, requesting to license some of the key interface elements from the Macintosh for use in what was to be called Windows. Apple, of course, declined. Microsoft again used its dominance in one market – this time Macintosh software – to force the industry to bend to its wishes. It threatened to discontinue development of Macintosh applications unless Apple licensed portions of the Mac OS. This would have been a major blow to Apple, since Microsoft was the dominant software provider for the Mac. So Apple was strong-armed into licensing parts of their OS to Microsoft. Windows 1.0 was introduced later that year.
In 1990, Microsoft released Windows 3.0. By then, Microsoft had clearly gone far beyond its licensing agreement with Apple, and had stolen patented intellectual property. Apple took Microsoft to court, and many industry experts thought Apple had a very strong argument and was going to nail Microsoft. Apple lost the case.
Ahh, the beauty of our justice system. :wink:
@TG:
Windows does not have any better of an interface than OS-2 or MacOS; it merely has more products available for it, because of Bill Gates’ marketing strategy. Microsoft has always targeted developers, trying to make them develop only for Windows, so that the majority of applications would reinforce Microsoft’s monopoly.
Quite contrary to the wrong path that Apple took. I would go as far as to call Apple a monopoly also. (Although this has yet to be proven by the Justice deparment.) If Apple had the better interface and superior Operating System, why aren’t they in Microsoft’s position today? Let me tell you why. First of all, it has been the policy of Apple throughout the years to do things “by themselves.” Unlike Microsoft, which developed it’s operating system for the popular hardware at that time (x86), Apple chose not to persure that line of hardware, and instead only sold it’s operating system on hardware that Apple had built. This severly choked off the amount of sales Apple was able to gain, and it’s the primary reason that Apple is lagging behind today. When you buy Mac OS, what are you choices for hardware to run that Operating System on? 1 choice. Apple hardware. I rest my case…
@TG:
Who cares that the product is less stable than the San Andreas Fault and has more bugs than the Everglades? Which is why Win 95 and 98 are so buggy internal error! :evil:
Although Windows products tend to be a “little bit” more buggy, I think it’s all ties into the fact that Microsoft’s goal is not to provide realiable software, but rather to please it’s stockholders. Now, I’m not quite sure what you mean by “more bugs” but if you’re relating to hacker attack and such, then that’s really not their fault. It’s is IMPOSSIBLE to write perfect software, and in Apple’s case, it’s pretty much a “security thru obscurity” situation. Apple’s such a little fish in a big sea, who would want to attack them? Why attack the little guy, when you can gain more publicity attacking the richest company in the world?