E-Data...the Next Microsoft?
Back in 1980-81, when IBM was looking for an operating system for what was to become the Personal Computer, they approached Microsoft to create PC-DOS for them. Of course, Microsoft bluffed IBM's hand, knowing full well that they had nothing they could offer them.
So, Microsoft went and bought the intellectual property from a company called Seattle Computer Products. At the time, it was called QDOS, for Quick and Dirty Operating System. Bill Gates and Paul Allen, in what was to be the SECOND most visionary business decision of all time, bought the rights to QDOS for $50,000.
IBM and XEROX both had the capability to create (and even PATENT) the Operating System. Instead, IBM left Microsoft to "dumb down" QDOS for them (to protect IBM's core business), and called it PC-DOS 1.0. Since PC-DOS 1.0, Microsoft has licensed their PURCHASED intellectual property for several BILLION dollars.
Flash forward a decade, and a company called E-Data makes what may be the MOST visionary business decision of all time. They buy the intellectual property rights for electronic commerce for $200,000. The potential market for electronic commerce is $100 billion by the year 2000. Five percent of that market would put E-Data in the same revenue class as Microsoft.
So here we have two companies, Microsoft and E-Data. Some people would call them scum, some would call them bloodsuckers. Others would say they are extremely lucky. But no matter what people's perceptions are, we will look back at this day in the year 2000 and see that both of these companies got where they are by making the right decision at the right time, and by capitalizing on OPP (other peoples property).
And you can bank on that. |
