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OT uSoft agn. It was about $10/share or so, this was in the 1986 time frame, Windows ran on 8086 (yes, there was a version 1.) and was a technically interesting piece of work, pilfered right from Apple who licensed it from PARC. There were, believe it or not, products that competed with Windows and actually were better. Gates is not a brilliant techie, he IS a brilliant marketeer. A language called COBOL was part of the 'package' one bought when they bought an IBM 360. A sort, ie SyncSort, IBM Sort, CA-Sort and others. Look at how Sterling Software, CA, UNC and a host of others got their start. IBM locked the market in by giving their software away when you bought the hardware. Or...the hardware was free if you bought their software. Once they were forced to unbundle the marketplace opened up for all players. |
