From: bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! : )
Organization: /usr/local/lib/news/organization
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 21:25:45 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.170632.0207085@locus.com> lowell@locus.com (Lowell Morrison) writes:
>In article <1992Dec23.040854.17113@tc.cornell.edu> bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec22.214057.5756@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu> rick@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu (Richard Warner) writes:
>>
>>>I think you should dabble a bit more in economics.  MS has had ZERO to
>>>do with the down-pricing of computers.  They have had little to
>>>do with OS's, also.  DOS was a hack, procured from another company
>>>which in turn borrowed it from a third.  The most major change was
>>>the 'UNIX-ification' of DOS, i.e., they borrowed heavily from another
>>>OS.  NT will be the first truly MS-written OS.  Even that has
>>>borrowed heavily from others (Mach from CMU, etc.).
>>
>>I do not care if DOS was a hack or not. The point is that it was 
>>_needed_ by people to operate their computers, and MS was the only
>>company that provided it to them by the time they needed it. 
>Dov, you need to study your history more.  There were three operating
>systems offered by IBM when the PC was introduced.  The $49 PC-DOS,
>The $395 CP/M-86, and Something called P-System (I don't remember
>the price).  And of course, Unix was offered for it as well.  The
>point being that IBM had a vested interest in lo-balling DOS (they thought
>that they had paid for it's development).  And DOS won on low cost alone,
>CP/M-86 was arguably a better OS (no inherant 640K barrier).

OK. I should have added the word _cheap_. Still makes no difference
in the argument itself. 

>>How come that no other company produced an equivalent of WIN 3.0 before MS ?
>>I do not say that WIN 3.0 is necessarily an outstanding technical 
>>achievement. What I say is that MS were the first to provide people
>>with what they need to do their work. 
>>
>Hmm, Digital research produced GEM some years before Windows 3.0, and 
>computers like the "Apricot" and Amiga came with it pre-installed.
>However, Digital Research under Gary Kildall had one problem, advertizing/
>marketing.  They simply couldn't, as shown by their abrupt abandonment of 
>their CP/M Customer base, market.

Again, it does not make any difference in the argument itself. Still,
only MS was capable of having the capabilities to provide _cheap_
GUI to users, in spite of the high cost of marketing. No other company 
was as efficient.

>>Why is it that people has taken for granted for years that only 
>>MS is capable of providing developers with APIs, and watched 
>>every word that come out from BG ? Only in 1991
>>IBM challenged that assumption. Why did not they challenge it a lot
>>earlier ? 
>>
>Because, others have chalanged Microsoft, only to be litigated or 
>advertized into the grave.

Again: Only MS was efficient enough to provide these services in spite
of high costs for advertizing and legalmen. 

This only supports my previous observation, that the more efficient
a company is, the more likely it is to be penalized by the FTC. Nice
prize for efficiency.

>--Lowell Morrison
>--Uncle Wolf (Old and Gray).

Dov