In article <OQkQjf#4DHA.1292>, PABear says...
> [..]

No comments? Well, I think it shows just how little value can be attached to
the title. Mr. Gates had no OS to sell when he sold PC DOS 1.0 to IBM. He
had to scramble to find someone with an OS to buy so he could fulfill the
promise. Its all been smoke and mirrors ever since. And predatory business
practices.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..."; even if he is a KBE.

"N. Miller" <nsm> wrote in message
news:9bbd
> In article <OQkQjf#4DHA.1292>, PABear
says...
> > [..]
>
> No comments? Well, I think it shows just how little value can be attached
to
> the title. Mr. Gates had no OS to sell when he sold PC DOS 1.0 to IBM. He
> had to scramble to find someone with an OS to buy so he could fulfill the
> promise. Its all been smoke and mirrors ever since. And predatory business
> practices.
>
> "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..."; even if he is a KBE.
>
> --
> Norman

Hehe, well just about every car spares place I visit will say "We haven't
got one in stock but we can get you one for tomorrow", so no real difference
there.

I actually had written an OS at that time, but for the Z80. Wrong place,
wrong time <$400 a week <g>

Charlie

tell that to his accountant.
drew

"N. Miller" <nsm> wrote in message
news:9bbd
[..]

On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 03:39:43 -0500, "PA Bear" <PABear> wrote:

>[..]

For milking the Brits!

"PA Bear" <PABear> wrote in message
news:1292
> [..]

Why not? he gave you an MVP :-)

" mac" <macknever> wrote in message news:2008
>
> "PA Bear" <PABear> wrote in message
> news:1292
>> [..]
>
> Why not? he gave you an MVP :-)
>
>

Which one? I didn't get one.

steve

"Steve Cochran" <scochran> wrote in message
news:2736
Why not? he gave you an MVP :-)

Which one? I didn't get one.

steve

OK, I will rephrase that :-)

Why not? he gave you the MVP award.

Yeah, correction... He gave my *wife* an MVP. She wants to give it back, <bg>.

>-----Original Message-----
>[..]
>.

<yawn>

> No comments? Well, I think it shows just how little value can be attached to
> the title. Mr. Gates had no OS to sell when he sold PC DOS 1.0 to IBM. He
> had to scramble to find someone with an OS to buy so he could fulfill the
> promise. Its all been smoke and mirrors ever since. And predatory business
> practices.

I have a few comments - including corrections of the material above.

1) c/sold/licensed/ "when he sold PC DOS 1.0 to IBM"

He|they didn't sell it to IBM, they licensed it. Microsoft's MO has
always been to start with a single item then license it out to the
masses. If IBM had purchased it outright, Microsoft would have only
had seed money, not steady income to keep them solvent while they did
other things.

2) c/buy/sell "to find someone with an OS to buy"

They had to find someone with an OS to sell to them. As the anecdotal
story goes, they were on the hook for the transaction with IBM and
found someone who would sell it to them for $50k.

------------

As far as milking the masses, you'll notice that's continued to be a
general practice over the years. One of the nastiest practices was
when PC manufacturers had to pay Microsoft a royalty for Windows, even
if Windows wasn't installed on the machine (and subsequently sold).
What kind of incentives did those folks have to install anything other
than Windows when it was coming out of their pockets?

How long would it be tolerated if a paint company were to charge an
automobile manufacturer as though every car were painted blue, even if
blue was only 15% of total sales?

It almost happened "again" several years ago and will have a chance of
happening again soon.

(Almost happened): Several years ago: After Bill returned from one
of his annual two-week sojourns - when he sequesters himself and makes
an analysis of where Microsoft is, where the market is, and where
everything is going, he realized the Internet was the next big thing
and returned with a vengeance, knowing they'd almost missed the boat
(which would have been interesting). Speaking in public several times
after that (I heard this said first-hand at conferences so it's not in
the realm of UL|FOAF): "I don't care what the Information
Superhighway looks like as long as I have a toolbooth on it." It was
around that time Microsoft started working with *both* MasterCard and
VISA to deal with online transactions. IIRC, Microsoft negotiated to
obtain *as much as* 1/10'000th of each transaction[1]. I'm reasonably
certain they learned enough to use that in their current|future
actions[2].

(Will have a chance): For those who pay reasonably close attention to
the news, including those who only read the headlines - this should be
old hat. Bill has predicted the end of spam using the same
"fractional transaction" technique. (And don't be surprised if you
hear Microsoft claim credit for creating it) For a long time (where
five, ten, or fifteen years delineates a long time for different
folks), it's been postulated micropayments would become part of email:
the sender would bear the burden of sending email. The cost per
message would be so small so as to be insignificant for most people
but those who spam would bear a decent financial burden on a regular
basis. So now we will see Microsoft setting up a tollbooth to "save
the Internet" (or more precisely, "save email"). But have no fear,
there are several other micropayment systems underway which are
exceptionally well-designed. The question becomes not "which is
better?" but "who has the most leverage? In the business world,
"better" rarely has a bearing upon the outcome.

[1] Remember the old story about the programmer(s) who realized when
interest is calculated a fraction of a cent is left off during
rounding off and routing that to another account accumulates to a tidy
sum? Take a few minutes to find out how much money changes hands
every day for MasterCard and VISA, let alone a month or year.
1/10'000th of that is an extraordinary sum.

[2] To determine where|what Microsoft is going to do next, look at
whom they are helping (or have recently helped) - although they
haven't worked with Mastercard|VISA for several years and the
relationship may have only been tentative at best. But here are two
examples: Microsoft & IBM were working on OS/2 together. When it
came time to renew, Microsoft suddenly poo-pooh'd the idea and bowed
out - they suddenly had Windows to worry about. In the late 80s,
Microsoft dispatched a sizeable group of onsite consultants to help
Compu$erve improve their technical practices. Those of us who knew
Microsoft's tendencies predicted Microsoft was in the early stages of
architecting their own online service, learning from what Compu$erve
had gone through and what they dealt with on a day-to-day basis.

a.t.

Apt commentary and well-written, Anders.

In article <936893ca.0401260951.64ffa1fe>,
ATomilsson says...
>
> I have a few comments - including corrections of the material above.
>
> 1) c/sold/licensed/ "when he sold PC DOS 1.0 to IBM"
>
> He|they didn't sell it to IBM, they licensed it. Microsoft's MO has
> always been to start with a single item then license it out to the
> masses. If IBM had purchased it outright, Microsoft would have only
> had seed money, not steady income to keep them solvent while they did
> other things.

Point taken.

> 2) c/buy/sell "to find someone with an OS to buy"

Point taken.

Teach me to post an article when I should have been in bed; can't quite
think clearly in the wee hours. And, I am a lousy "hip shooter" anyway. The
intention was to show that Mr. Gates didn't exactly do anything worthy of
knighthood, and may even be near as sleazy as a spammer in the bargain.

The rest of your article only expands upon that sleaze factor.

In article <e05Ddx#4DHA.2344>, charlie
says...
>
> "N. Miller" <nsm> wrote in message
> news:9bbd
> says...
> to
> Hehe, well just about every car spares place I visit will say "We haven't
> got one in stock but we can get you one for tomorrow", so no real difference
> there.

As I was so sharply corrected, it wasn't a sale, but a license. Do you
license your spare from the tire company?

> I actually had written an OS at that time, but for the Z80. Wrong place,
> wrong time <$400 a week <g>

I wonder. Another company, with a better OS, was approached first; they
turned down the IBM offer because they didn't like the terms IBM wanted.

" mac" <macknever> wrote in message
news:3896
>
> "Steve Cochran" <scochran> wrote in message
> news:2736
> Why not? he gave you an MVP :-)
>
> Which one? I didn't get one.
>
> steve
>
> OK, I will rephrase that :-)
>
> Why not? he gave you the MVP award.
>Put in perspective - Tony Blair will give Bill Gates a bribe to show the
British electorate what a cool, right-on kind of guy he is, because he
thinks we're so knocked out by celebrity that we'll vote him in yet again in
order to remain in his reflected glory.


Shane