The reason IBM used the 8088 was that it was similar to the most popular processor of the day, the 8080, and hence would be easily able to run the most popular OS of the day which ran on the 8080, CP/M. Of course, the whole IBM/Digital Research (the creator of CP/M) catasphrophe is something that has entered computing folklore. Ironically, the OS that became MS/DOS was a cheap clone of CP/M for the 8088 - meant as a stop-gap until CP/M was actually ported to that processor. The rest, as they say, is history.
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The reason IBM used the 8088 was that it was similar to the most popular processor of the day, the 8080, and hence would be easily able to run the most popular OS of the day which ran on the 8080, CP/M. Of course, the whole IBM/Digital Research (the creator of CP/M) catasphrophe is something that has entered computing folklore. Ironically, the OS that became MS/DOS was a cheap clone of CP/M for the 8088 - meant as a stop-gap until CP/M was actually ported to that processor. The rest, as they say, is history.