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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scotsman who wrote (8252)	6/3/1998 2:49:00 PM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

the reason the IBM did not sign MSFT to a exclusivity contract on MS-DOS I believe that IBM did not think there would be any significant non-IBM DOS market when they did the deal. According to MSFT lore, it was Ballmer who pushed for the two key items of the MSFT dynasty - IBM's early offer was a fixed price for DOS, and he countered with a low royalty per copy, combined with the ability to offer an equivalent product on the open market. The PC-DOS royalty from IBM was trivial and would never have created the MSFT we see today. IBM thought they 'skinned' the naive nerds since according to IBM projections the original fixed-price offer would have given MSFT more money than the royalty deal. According to this view, MSFT, working with outfits like CPQ to build a non-IBM franchise, was what built the PC industry as we see it today.