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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lady Lurksalot who wrote (22693)	6/2/1998 12:14:00 AM
From: Father Terrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Holly: I am glad you mentioned IBM. At one time many people vilified that corporation just as they are doing to poor Bill Gates today. (Not poor in the megabuck sense, of course!) During the 60s many complained that IBM was too big. No one would EVER be able to compete against it. The government even considered forcing IBM to break up at one time (as they did to Standard Oil and in this century, At&T). But guess what? Other companies could and did compete. All it took was creativity and a new idea. Bill Gates and others (including Apple) almost caused IBM to go down the tubes. I remember when its stock was trading under 40 in the early 80s. Many then were predicting its death throes. The interesting thing is that like IBM did to the inventor of the Xerox machine, they also turned down Bill Gates when he tried to sell them what later became the launching pad for MSFT -- for a measly $75,000. Best investment IBM never made. 'Course they probably wouldn't have been as marketing-smart as Bill proved to be. Much of the rancor directed towards Gates is, IMO, rooted in either fear or jealousy or a combination of the two. FT