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

To: rudedog who wrote (11663)	10/22/1998 4:53:00 PM
From: ToySoldier	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

One clarification Rude, "At that time, MSFT had 100% of the market, just like solaris on sparc, IBM on AS400, etc." Right from the beginning, MSFT did not have 100% of the market. DR-DOS was there in the old days as well. The reason MSFT's version of DOS became the defacto standard in the industry was because of the last industry controller of a Monopoly - IBM - selected MS-DOS to be the OS used on their PCs. That meant DR-DOS was doomed! Likewise in the early days of Windows, MSFT was competing with GeoWorks. Remember them? Following is a quick summary of MSFT Windows' initial competitor.... "Geoworks is a preemptive multitasking operating system with a user interface similar to those of Microsoft Windows or the Macintosh. Like the earlier versions of Windows it is a DOS extension. Unlike Windows, it also runs on older machines (like PC/XT) with little RAM (640K required). After its introduction, it promised to be a real alternative to MS-Windows, but due to the fact that no Windows applications could be run under Geoworks and the lack of commercial programs, it could never assert itself against Microsoft Windows. Included in the Geoworks ensemble package is a word processor, a drawing program, limited desktop publishing capabilities, Tetris and Solitaire games, communications software, and a variety of extras for file management and customisaton of the interface. Support for a large number of printers and mice is also included, and Geoworks provides automatic access to all DOS and Netware drives." End of History Lesson. Toy