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Bill Gates Reveals Secret of Microsoft's Success
Hugh Pickens writes "Bill Gates, in a interview with the BBC, revealed the secret of Microsoft's success: 'Most of our competitors were very poorly run. They did not understand how to bring in people with business experience and people with engineering experience and put them together,' said Gates. 'They did not think about software in this broad way. They did not think about tools or efficiency. They would therefore do one product, but would not renew it to get it to the next generation.' Mitch Kapor, founder of the Lotus Corporation, has a different view: 'Claims by Microsoft that people were buying the software because it was good are pretty self-serving. I'd like to smoke what he's smoking.' Gates also said that he took a 'conservative balance sheet approach' to running Microsoft explaining that he wanted 'great financial strength so we would have the flexibility to do software in the new way, or whatever we wanted to do.'"
microsoft was succesful because they care for *selling* a product rather than selling a *product*. that's why they wanted to sell their toy of an OS while IBM wanted to continue development.
first to market
first to resell their own product with a different paintjob.
microsoft is succesful because that is what they targeted. selling. if they wanted to make great programs they would harvest every cutting edge algorithm relative to computing known to mankind .
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Correction:
All Bill Gates did was [steal the idea for] a GUI [from Apple, who stole it from Xerox] when every other operating system was still command line based.
Not in the least. The Chicago GUI was a mentally retarded variant of the OS/2 Workplace Shell. It looked like OS/2 2.x/3.x, but had very little of its functionality, and was significantly less stable than either OS/2 or Win3.1.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Apple actually licensed the GUI patents from Xerox. They didn't steal anything.
Amiga, ATARI, DecView, GEM, Lisa, MacOS, OS/2, PARC, SunView, X11
Microsoft didn't "bring about" the GUI, they stole the most basic aspects of it and wedged it on top of DOS, which BTW they also stole.
You just couldn't be more wrong.
"Claims by Microsoft that people were buying the software because it was good are pretty self-serving."
I didn't know anyone intentionally bought M$ products. I thought they got shoved down everyones throat when they bought a new PC.
Gates is a lousy programmer and a marketing genius.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Case in point, Bill Gates did NOT write MS-DOS. He BOUGHT it from someone who DID write it. And only then because Bill Gates had already been approached by IBM for licensing of such.
So that alone disproves your theory.
So what KOOLAID have you been drinking? Microsoft exists soley because of Bill Gates mom and IBM. Bill Gates Mom and the CEO of IBM both sat on the same board. She setup a meeting between Bill Gates and IBM. It was that meeting that allowed Microsoft to license their OS to IBM. IF IBM HAD PASSED - THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO MICROSOFT TODAY! A monopoly helped create another monopoly.
Microsoft leadership wisely understood that the vast majority of business owners and other people at the time had no clue what would be good or bad in computing equipment generally, or software or operating software or application design and features specifically.
The key was to get something out there fast, market it as if it was good, and make sure it was what was installed by default on all of
the cheapest computers available.
Only the 0.01% computer or software experts out there would be lamenting for the substantially greater quality and simplicity that could have
been, if only there had been a sophisticated market to begin with.
The effect continues. I mean, for example,
it's now clear to absolutely anyone with a
clue that macs and osx are far superior to
windows xp or vista pcs, but the market share
is still the exact opposite of what it would/
should be if quality were the deciding factor,
and price and lock-in wasn't.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
...as I type, the full programme from which the interview is sourced is on BBC Two until 8pm. It's hosted by Fiona Bruce and is called How a Geek Changed the World. It'll shortly be available on the BBC iPlayer, alternatively I'm sure some kind Beastmaster-lover (or hater) with a TV capture card will upload it to YouTube in good time.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
Not to mention that Bill always seems to forget that his mommy was on the board of the UnitedWay with IBM's then CEO. I'm all for using your connections, but this was by far the most significant, and most overlooked, factor in MS getting the IBM PC contract.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
So for once Bill Gates has said something of significant importance for everybody -- everybody, that is, who is smart enough to recognize the wisdom here.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I don't consider the XBox "innovative" in any way. They basically took an existing set of technologies wrapped it in a box and added DRM.
They didn't design anything.
You're being disingenuous, but I'll answer anyways. They were handed the monopoly for the PC operating system by IBM, who actually left control of the OS in Microsoft's hands while making it the official OS for what would become the official desktop hardware, because everybody who wanted a desktop repeated, "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" and bought an IBM PC, or, if they were thrifty, a clone (which still had an MS operating system).
Well, there it is again...(sigh)
"fucking" "RUTHLESS" "Cut-throats" "gangsters".. etc..
What, in goodness sakes did MS ever do to you? And, oops- You forgot to include the obligatory M$ in your diatribe.
You must be real fun to talk to in a bar after a few beers, hmmm?
.
- aqk
F U
IBM PC compatible operating systems.
Other companies tried to compete with far superior products, but had their contracts dry up when Microsoft enforced per-processor liscensing. If a company did choose to go with DR-DOS, MS would dump MS-DOS on the market at below market prices to lock out the competition.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
We didn't used to. We used to break monopolies like ATT up. No longer. But then, we didn't used to have a global marketplace in most things; we didn't have the WTO, we didn't have jobs exported to other parts of the world, we didn't have Clinton and we didn't have Bush. It didn't seem that CEOs were psychopathic sociopaths like today's CEOs, and we didn't reward those CEOs for failure like we do now, and those CEOs didn't starve our lowest paid workers.
Wow! Such naivete is stunning. Simply stunning. Do a little history reading, for the love of Pete. Look into why unions were created, anything on the industrial revolution, or even one book on coal mines. Read about Pinkerton from someplace other than their corporate brochures. Sheeesh! The good ol' days weren't all that great.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Software OS monopoly over IBM's hardware monopoly. Thought it was pretty clear.
The IBM PC was sold with 3 different OS choices.
They were handed the monopoly for the PC operating system by IBM, who actually left control of the OS in Microsoft's hands while making it the official OS for what would become the official desktop hardware, because everybody who wanted a desktop repeated, "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" and bought an IBM PC, or, if they were thrifty, a clone (which still had an MS operating system).
The IBM PC was available with 3 OS choices.
To say nothing of how it is - by definition - impossible to be a monopoly in a "market" you created.
How can you have a monopoly over a market you create ?
You almost by definition have a monopoly over a market you create. If you are the only person making widgetA then you have a monopoly on that market, even if you were the first one to come up with the idea to make widgetA.
There is nothing wrong with being a monopoly. What is wrong is using that power to lock other people out of the same market (or related markets... like the market for widgetB that works with widgetA).
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Yes, and CP/M and p-system were more expensive, and thus DOS became the dominant system. They gained a monopoly through a bit of luck and a bit of business acumen. Then they exploited that monopoly.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
You're right it's not "Jolt" Cola... It's Jolt Cola.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
I recall 2. I had the choice of shelling out $175 for DR's CPM/86 or accepting PC-DOS which came with the machine for free. The other one you referred to I'm sure wasn't free. Now if that doesn't constitute a monopoly for MS, it's because you're playing with the meaning of words.
Only his tendency toward a dazed stupor prevented him from screaming aloud.
That only got them DOS but it got them into the monopoly position with DOS. From there, it was anti-competitive business moves by Balmer which took them to where they are today. The fact that they had the power to destroy companies by just putting names up on computer conference display boards( see book "StartUp" ) shows how powerful they were in the DOS days.
Couple that control of the market with billions in cash and you've got a company that no only is willing to destroy any competitor they feel is a treat, but they have the power and will to do so.
There was only a sliver in time where Microsoft could have missed the position they where handed by IBM. That was after Phoenix Technologies reverse engineered the IBM BIOS and clone manufacturers were asking Microsoft for versions of MS DOS for it. Even then, who else were the cloners going to ask for and OS since IBM already had the PC market for business computers? Back to CPM-86 and Digital Research?
Microsoft was gifted a monopoly by IBM and they chose to protect and leverage that monopoly position with anti-competitive business methods and crappy software.
Because we already know that Digital Research was run by someone who was competing on technical merit, it would likely be a far far better computing landscape today had Microsoft stuck with BASIC and DR gained the market position of dominant OS vendor in the 80s. Think about it. the 386 and 486 were 80s era CPUs but where 32bit. Microsoft released Windows 95 in late 1995 as a crappy 16/32bit OS which still relied on DOS under it for much of it code. 1995! There were UNIX version for the 386 and 486 doing full 32bit computing and real multi-tasking. There was OS/2 doing pre-emptive multi-tasking on those CPUs. Microsoft to this day differentiates between a client OS and a server OS and that is ridiculous. What year/millennium was it that the powerhouse that is Microsoft had a proper operating system for the masses? When did Windows 2000 ship? It took Microsoft almost 10 years later to get a moderately capable 32bit OS into the general populations computing systems.
Surely you give Microsoft too much credit for their position in the market. IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
So you're saying our only two possible options are returning to the 1800s, or tolerating unethical business practices?
Let me introduce you to a new term: false dichotomy.
While MS may have made the job harder from Lotus than their own internal developers (hiding part of the API from Lotus, etc.), Lotus also shot themselves in the foot.
In my case, I had a spreadsheet which used a fairly complex macro to read in a text document and process it. This worked nicely in 1-2-3/DOS. Guess what -- it did not work in 1-2-3 for Windows. In my example, Lotus gave away the single compelling advantage that they had: compatibility.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
> Other people also saw that selling an OS without selling the hardware
> could be a viable business. Yet those other companies did NOT survive.
> Again, Microsoft BOUGHT their OS from someone who wrote it because HE
> saw that the OS did not have to be sold with the machine BEFORE Bill
> Gates saw that (as you claim).
You are confused.
Petersen at SCP developed QDOS (later SCP-DOS, 86-DOS, PC/MS-DOS) to run on the Zebra computers that SCP manufactured. In other words it was to be sold _with_ a machine.
It was based on CP/M which was written and developed by DRI and this was sold only through OEMs. For example MS and SCP (and many others) paid DRI for OEM licences so that they could sell CP/M _with_their_machines_.
These OEM customers may also have sold CP/M and MP/M as upgrades for their own machines, but you could not buy retail copies of CP/M from DRI.
Microsoft also only sold MS-DOS to OEM customers, such as IBM, DEC, etc. In fact there was a convernent with IBM that MS could not sell MS-DOS as a retail pack branded by Microsoft for 10 years. MS-DOS 5 was released the day after the 10 years was up. You could buy MS-DOS from Compaq, IBM, and dozens of others, primarily as upgrades and it was supposed to be for their own brand machines.
So your claim about 'selling the OS without the hardware' is simply wrong. MS, for 10 years, only sold to OEMs to on-sell _with_ their hardware, or _for_ their hardware.
In fact SCP, where they had bought MS-DOS, had a free and indefinite licence to sell versions of MS-DOS as long as it was 'with a computer'. When the fire burnt down their premises they no longer built their Zebra S100 computers but they started selling bundled copies of MS-DOS with a V20 or V30 CPU chip. This was a 'computer' though not a complete computer system, merely a chip that was slightly faster than the 8088 it replaced.
Microsoft had to buy the company to stop them doing this, allegedly for one million in 1983(?).
The first retail DRI CP/M-86 was relaesed for the IBM-PC because IBM agreed to sell CP/M-86 1.0 alongside PC-DOS (as part of the settlement of DRI proof of claims over the origin of MS-DOS), but refused to update this when the 1.1 release came out, so DRI built their own implementation and sold it at retail.
They continued this retail boxing with DR-DOS 3.4, 5 and 6 and took about 15% of the market before MS could get MS-DOS 5 out (with the 10 year restriction) and then with illegal per-box pricing, bundling MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 at Win3.1 price, and AARP code managed to reduce DRI's market.
By this time Novell felt threatened (_was_ threatened) and bought DRI as a hedge against MS-DOS "no longer supporting Netware", ie ensuring that it wouldn't work.
> Yet those other companies did NOT survive.
Only because MS killed them off, or bought them, or used illegal contracts against them.
eg BeOS died because MS threatened that if any OEM installed it then MS would no longer sell them _any_ DOS and Windows.
No, they didn't.
Here's some words from an
expert in the field of compression and patents:
http://www.ross.net/compression/
" Waterworth patented a LZ77 variant (US Patent 4701745). This algorithm
is generally referred to as as LZRW1, because Ross Williams reinvented
it later and posted it on comp.compression on April 22, 1991. The same
algorithm has later been patented by Gibson & Graybill (US Patent
5049881). The patent office failed to recognize that the same algorithm
was patented twice, even though the wording used in the two patents is
very similar.
The Waterworth patent is now owned by Stac, which won a lawsuit against
Microsoft, concerning the compression feature of MS-DOS 6.0. Damages
awarded were $120 million. (Microsoft and Stac later settled out of
court.) "
From his resume: "Consulting to Microsoft: In 1993 Stac initiated a
software patent lawsuit against Microsoft over the doublespace data
compression feature of MS-DOS 6. As part of its defence, Microsoft
retained me as an expert in text data compression. Tasks involved
searching for prior art and evaluating patents. "
Most importantly, however:
http://www.ross.net/compression/introduction.html
"Unfortunately, during this happy rollout, some patents popped out of
the US patent system that cast a shadow over the LZRW series algorithms,
and they became effectively unuseable in any practical application. If
you want to use them in any product (whether free or commercial), you
will have to do some in-depth patent homework and algorithm
development/modification so as to avoid infringement. If you think
that's easy, then you should be aware that Microsoft tried to use an
LZ77/LZRW1/etc variant, specifically designed not to infringe existing
patents, in its MS-DOS V6 operating system, and ended up having to pay
Stac about $80m in the resulting patent lawsuit. For this reason, I
would like to take this opportunity to state that the code provided in
this web (and FTP site) is provided with the intention that it be used
for educational and recreational use only. "
Coming soon - pyrogyra
The headstart and the fact that 100% of PCs were running PC DOS by the time CP/M 86 and the UCSD P-System were released produced a natural result.
Of course, CP/M 86 was always a poor imitation of a 16 bit O/S pasted on top of an 8 bit system as was the UCSD P-System. So was PC-DOS, but it evolved over time. The UCSD P-System was limited to 64k even on m68k, so it never got over its limitations. Not that it matters. They never had a chance.
Disclaimer: I used to write UCSD P-System device drivers for pay.
Microsoft was able to parlay this first success into their success with DOS and then on to the current dual money makers of Windows and Office.
I personally dislike Microsoft software. I think it is unimaginative, poorly-written, bloated, slow, and responsible for holding back personal computer innovation for the last fifteen years. But don't say that Microsoft was handed everything. Give credit where it is due.