RE: <<IBM did it [came out of government lawsuit pretty much unscathed]>>
How do you figure that? I agree IBM came out of their government lawsuit pretty much intact, but unscathed? Hardly. For example, had there been no government lawsuit, do you really think that Microsoft, Intel, even Compaq, would have been allowed to grow or even survive?
IBM could have crushed them all, especially Microsoft, when they were still small enough. If you read any biography of Bill Gates, you'll notice how terrified he was that IBM will squash Microsoft at any time (during the 1980's).
But because of the government constantly hammering them about being a monopoly, IBM had to treat these companies with soft gloves (I know, I know, IBM sued the bejesus out of a lot of companies, but think how much worse it would have been with no government lawsuit). In fact, IBM would probably have followed their usual practise and built the PC with their own OS and their own microchips. They didn't really have to go to Intel and Microsoft. By using Intel and Microsoft, they built a better PC than they could have done in-house, but they would still have done it in-house and pulled the industry along through sheer muscle (the same charge levied at Microsoft quite often).
So the government lawsuit against IBM allowed all these companies to grow to become behemoths in their own right and capture a lot of business that would otherwise have gone to IBM. So I don't see how anyone can say that IBM came out of their government lawsuit unscathed.
Logos |
