How high will Microsoft fly? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly?

MSFT 483.03

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To: Bob Drzyzgula who wrote (33432)	11/9/1999 4:18:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (2) of 74651

OS/2 was without a doubt a "better DOS than DOS", but it never came close to being a "better Windows than Windows". Yup. The GUI history gets mixed with the rest. Microsoft made a leap of faith in what was an unproven technology. Microsoft recognized the value of Apple's Xerox-derived GUI right away, when the mass of the computer industry (including IBM) saw it as little more than an interesting toy. As I recall, IBM was late in bringing out Presentation Manager for OS/2. I don't remember all of the subplots that led to the dissolution of the IBM/MS development partnership for OS/2, but I recall that a very buggy Windows version was ready long before PM was usable. That delay (along with the technologically unfortunate, but market-approved compatibility with the old DOS) gave Microsoft time it needed to improve Windows and to attract other applications vendors like Aldus from the Mac camp over to Windows, and to convert their own Mac applications to Windows. Both Lotus and WordPerfect failed to anticipate consumer's acceptance of the GUI interface. Along with IBM, they put their faith in the "better DOS than DOS". Microsoft, on the other hand, recognized that the market would accept and even embrace the less-than-ideal underlying system if consumers were able to continue using existing applications while slowly moving to a significantly richer environment with new kinds of applications.

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