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

To: Hal Rubel who wrote (10368)	8/27/1998 9:40:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Hal, as sometimes leader of the nefarious international ilk conspiracy, I got to say you're stretching things a little here. Well, not everything, but more on that later. J. K., ever wonder why universally standard Windows still does not yet run itself on Motorola's PowerPC chip? Because "Standard Windows" (i.e. Windows 95, probably Windows 98) still has bunches of 16bit x86 assembler in it? That was the story at least when the original Pentium Pro looked a bit anemic running Windows 95. Maybe after the "Win32 API" moved fully over to NT with NT4.0, the assembler was gone, I don't know. As for NT running on PowerPC, I don't know much about PowerPC, but it might be pure big-endian while NT is little-endian only. MIPS could switch byte-sex, I think because they had an early deal with DEC, which was pure little-endian. IBM big iron and the 68k family were always big-endian, as is SPARC. On another bit of that Times story, I got to document a bit something I may have mentioned here before. According to an internal memo written by an Intel executive who attended the meeting, Gates left no doubt that he wanted the software development at the Intel Architecture Labs, or IAL, curbed. And at the same time he publicly announced [read "threatened"] that Microsoft would share technologies and spend up to $100 million to train engineers to develop and service products on a version of Windows written for a competitor's microprocessor." And now, the rest of the story: Still, the future of Alpha--and Digital--increasingly depended on NT. And Digital's relationship with Microsoft was growing more complex. In mid-1993, Digital engineers looking into early versions of NT noticed that some portions of the program bore a striking resemblance to an advanced operating system called Mica that Digital had developed, but canceled in 1988. Mica was the brainchild of Dave Cutler, a former Digital software star who joined Microsoft in 1988 and was now the chief architect of NT. Palmer decided that Digital had a legal claim against Microsoft. But, insiders say, instead of filing suit, Palmer chose to use the threat of legal action to spur Microsoft into improving Alpha's prospects. Microsoft execs won't comment, saying it concerns legal matters. Still, Palmer's gambit appears to have worked. By the spring of 1995 the two companies hammered out details of a broad agreement for Digital to provide NT network installation services for Microsoft. Announced with great fanfare by Digital in August, 1995, the alliance included payments by Microsoft estimated at $65 million to $100 million to help train Digital NT technicians. (from businessweek.com ) To bad the well is dry for the 5k Microserfs working 'round the clock on NT2K. Meanwhile, quite clever for Bill to turn that little sow's ear into a silk purse. In another context, of course. While trying to find that ref, I noticed that sometimes poster rudedog seems to have worked with Cutler on NT at MSFT, wonder if he'd care to comment? In my search, I also stumbled on this message from a well known friend of Bill which I found mystifying at the time. Now it makes sense, sort of, though well out of date at the time it was posted. What IBM is doing is using Java in an attempt to usurp Wintel's dominance in the computing world, not make the world more "open." INTEL and IBM might as well announce thier secret war now, it is becoming more than obvious. (from www2.techstocks.com That would be one Reginald Middleton, posting Feb. 26, 1997. I thought the INTEL and IBM secret war on Wintel made no sense at the time, but I guess there was something to the story. Fierce but courtly paranoid Andy Grove was no match for fierce, uncourtly Bill. Microsoft must be free to innovate, not anybody else. I've always been a Java advocate, but only Bill thinks it or anything else could replace Windows "in a day". But, competition bad when you're the world's foremost monopolist. Better to sabotage and subvert the competition than let technology compete on its merits. Another one of those postmodern economic things I don't quite understand. Cheers, Dan.