Microsoft: The Rise of the Empire
As described in the earlier Gyan, IBM had decided to “outsource” the job of writing the Operating System and other softwares to other vendors.
Jack Sams, who was working under Bill Lowe in the IBM’s PC Project, was given the job to find out the probable candidates who would write softwares for the IBM PC.
He was going to make a call that was soon going to change the fate of a person and… that of many others.
Sams wanted to write programs that would run on BASIC. While looking out for the vendors who had written BASIC compilers for other computers, Jack Sams came across a 24 year old college dropout from Seattle and his company - Microsoft. He called up Bill Gates – the “President” of Microsoft to ask if they could discuss about the BASIC Compiler. Bill Gates replied “Yes, any time in coming two weeks” Sams was prompt to ask, “How about tomorrow?” Gates was taken by surprise by this urgency because he was familiar with the sluggish ways IBM works.
The very next day, Sams was welcomed by a person who looked no older than 16. To his surprise, he later came to know that THIS was Bill Gates! Sams, as per the tradition with IBM, made Bill Gates sign on a contract that allowed IBM to use whatever Bill Gates may say but not the vice versa. That was a standard practice for IBM when dealing with any one else and IBM was, back then, such an influential company that everyone complied to it without much fuss.
Gates had also invited Steve Ballmer – a friend of his who was Harvard Management drop out. May be he wanted to impress the team from IBM! They talked over for 3 hours but Sams was shrewd enough not to give a slightest idea to Gates that IBM is thinking of building its own PC. Sams was very impressed with Gates but said, while leaving, that, “Don’t be under the impression that you have made the deal. We’ll get back to you if we have something for you”
Microsoft had started in 1976, with writing BASIC for the first computer “Altair” which was built by a company named “Mitts” owned by Ed Roberts. Soon, as Altair and Apple became popular with the hobbyists, BASIC too gained popularity. But software piracy was in existence back then as well. The hobbyists used to copy the authentic versions of BASIC and pass them on to others. Gates was infuriated to know about this, so much so that he had written an angry open letter to all the hobbyists condemning them for using pirated copies and pleading them not to continue with the practice. Hobbyists, obviously, didn’t quite appreciate the letter and became hostile towards Gates. I guess, this was the start of the hatred towards Bill Gates!
Microsoft made sure that they have the rights of BASIC with them, even when they are selling it as a product.
Microsoft then had 31 employees and was working from Seattle – Gates’ home town. Sams’ visit was just to explore if Microsoft is capable to handle the task of writing BASIC compiler for the IBM PC. Two weeks later, Sams returned with 5 aides to see Bill Gates again. This time they had a deal. Sams told Gates everything about the PC project – “Project Chess”. Gates readily agreed to give BASIC to IBM. Sams asked him if Microsoft can write Operating System for the PC. But, Gates hadn’t had a ready OS at the time. He, in turn, asked Sams to contact Gary Kildall who owned Digital Research Intergalactic (DRI) DRI had an Operating System called “CP/M” which worked on a lot of small computers and was extremely popular. Gates, even, set up a meeting of IBM people with Kildall!
The CP/M operating system came out of work done by Gary Kildall, a consultant who worked for Intel in the early ’70s. While working at Intel, Kildall interfaced an 8-in. floppy disk drive to an Intel development system. To make the disk easy to use, to save and retrieve information, Kildall wrote a program he called Control Program/Monitor (CP/M).
Kildall offered CP/M to Intel, but the company suggested Kildall market it on his own. So, he set up Digital Research Intergalactic to sell versions of CP/M to computer hobbyists. Eventually, Kildall rewrote CP/M so it relied on a separate, small section of code that he or the computer manufacturer could quickly customize for different computer models. As a result, the concept of machine-dependent BIOS was born.
IBM team went to see Gary Kildall. But as it turned out, Kildall knew a lot about programming but not much about running a company. For some reason – and legends have many – Kildall was in flight and could not meet IBM team. Some say he was deliberately busy flying his own plane or some say he was returning from a business visit and couldn’t make it for the appointment with the IBM people. Whatever may be the reasons, the fact remained that he had missed a great – or perhaps, the greatest opportunity!
…IBM decided to give the contract of writing OS for Acorn to Microsoft…
As stated earlier, Microsoft hadn’t had a ready OS. But it knew who had. There was another company named “Seattle Computer Products” (SCP.)They had hired Tim Patterson who had written QDOS (Quick Dirty Operating System) SCP modified QDOS to suit the 8086 Microprocessor and shipped it with the name “86 – DOS” Through several business arrangements, Microsoft licensed and then purchased outright the exclusive rights to 86-DOS. It modified the 86 – DOS to run on the Prototype of PC built by IBM and later on tailored it to work on the actual “Acorn” And of course, they didn’t forget to rename it to MS – DOS!
So finally, when IBM PC was launched, it could run 3 Operating Systems: PC – DOS, CP/M and P – DOS. IBM had renamed MS – DOS to PC – DOS and sold it for free along with the PC. Even when some people found CP/M superior to MS – DOS, just because CP/M was more expensive than PC – DOS (MS – DOS) it couldn’t quite grab the market. MS – DOS, soon, became extremely popular. Microsoft was smart enough not to sell the rights of MS – DOS to IBM. So when IBM clones started eating IBM’s market share, Microsoft made sure that MS – DOS runs and gets sold with the IBM Clone PCs as well!
Much is written about how Microsoft became what it is today and what tactics they used to completely monopolize the software market. The history is well known…
What is not much known is that Gary Kildall died in 1994, almost unnoticed to the computer world. Novell acquired the assets of Digital Research, and Caldera acquired those rights in 1996.
Gordon Eubanks, president and CEO of Oblix and a former colleague of Kildall, said, “The real issue wasn't that Gary refused to talk to IBM. The real issue was that Microsoft had a much better vision for the business”
I sometimes wonder when somebody says, “I want to become Bill Gates”, do they really know how many Gary Kildalls, Ray Noordas have perished before and when a Bill Gates was made? Well, of course, I’m not a pessimist because, somewhere at the back of my mind, even I hum the song by Goo Goo Dolls when I read about Gates, “If I could be like that, I would give anything… Just to live one day (well, in fact, all of my lifeJ) in his shoes…“
Regards,
Abhishek
P.S.
1) Well, the timing for this writeup couldn’t have been better as Bill Gates is arriving in India tomorrow on a whirlwind tour.
3) It is yet another coincidence that it just turned out to be the 13th write up in this seriesJ Well, somebody had to be 13th, right?
Jack Sams, who was working under Bill Lowe in the IBM’s PC Project, was given the job to find out the probable candidates who would write softwares for the IBM PC.
He was going to make a call that was soon going to change the fate of a person and… that of many others.
Sams wanted to write programs that would run on BASIC. While looking out for the vendors who had written BASIC compilers for other computers, Jack Sams came across a 24 year old college dropout from Seattle and his company - Microsoft. He called up Bill Gates – the “President” of Microsoft to ask if they could discuss about the BASIC Compiler. Bill Gates replied “Yes, any time in coming two weeks” Sams was prompt to ask, “How about tomorrow?” Gates was taken by surprise by this urgency because he was familiar with the sluggish ways IBM works.
The very next day, Sams was welcomed by a person who looked no older than 16. To his surprise, he later came to know that THIS was Bill Gates! Sams, as per the tradition with IBM, made Bill Gates sign on a contract that allowed IBM to use whatever Bill Gates may say but not the vice versa. That was a standard practice for IBM when dealing with any one else and IBM was, back then, such an influential company that everyone complied to it without much fuss.
Gates had also invited Steve Ballmer – a friend of his who was Harvard Management drop out. May be he wanted to impress the team from IBM! They talked over for 3 hours but Sams was shrewd enough not to give a slightest idea to Gates that IBM is thinking of building its own PC. Sams was very impressed with Gates but said, while leaving, that, “Don’t be under the impression that you have made the deal. We’ll get back to you if we have something for you”
Microsoft had started in 1976, with writing BASIC for the first computer “Altair” which was built by a company named “Mitts” owned by Ed Roberts. Soon, as Altair and Apple became popular with the hobbyists, BASIC too gained popularity. But software piracy was in existence back then as well. The hobbyists used to copy the authentic versions of BASIC and pass them on to others. Gates was infuriated to know about this, so much so that he had written an angry open letter to all the hobbyists condemning them for using pirated copies and pleading them not to continue with the practice. Hobbyists, obviously, didn’t quite appreciate the letter and became hostile towards Gates. I guess, this was the start of the hatred towards Bill Gates!
Microsoft made sure that they have the rights of BASIC with them, even when they are selling it as a product.
Microsoft then had 31 employees and was working from Seattle – Gates’ home town. Sams’ visit was just to explore if Microsoft is capable to handle the task of writing BASIC compiler for the IBM PC. Two weeks later, Sams returned with 5 aides to see Bill Gates again. This time they had a deal. Sams told Gates everything about the PC project – “Project Chess”. Gates readily agreed to give BASIC to IBM. Sams asked him if Microsoft can write Operating System for the PC. But, Gates hadn’t had a ready OS at the time. He, in turn, asked Sams to contact Gary Kildall who owned Digital Research Intergalactic (DRI) DRI had an Operating System called “CP/M” which worked on a lot of small computers and was extremely popular. Gates, even, set up a meeting of IBM people with Kildall!
The CP/M operating system came out of work done by Gary Kildall, a consultant who worked for Intel in the early ’70s. While working at Intel, Kildall interfaced an 8-in. floppy disk drive to an Intel development system. To make the disk easy to use, to save and retrieve information, Kildall wrote a program he called Control Program/Monitor (CP/M).
Kildall offered CP/M to Intel, but the company suggested Kildall market it on his own. So, he set up Digital Research Intergalactic to sell versions of CP/M to computer hobbyists. Eventually, Kildall rewrote CP/M so it relied on a separate, small section of code that he or the computer manufacturer could quickly customize for different computer models. As a result, the concept of machine-dependent BIOS was born.
IBM team went to see Gary Kildall. But as it turned out, Kildall knew a lot about programming but not much about running a company. For some reason – and legends have many – Kildall was in flight and could not meet IBM team. Some say he was deliberately busy flying his own plane or some say he was returning from a business visit and couldn’t make it for the appointment with the IBM people. Whatever may be the reasons, the fact remained that he had missed a great – or perhaps, the greatest opportunity!
…IBM decided to give the contract of writing OS for Acorn to Microsoft…
As stated earlier, Microsoft hadn’t had a ready OS. But it knew who had. There was another company named “Seattle Computer Products” (SCP.)They had hired Tim Patterson who had written QDOS (Quick Dirty Operating System) SCP modified QDOS to suit the 8086 Microprocessor and shipped it with the name “86 – DOS” Through several business arrangements, Microsoft licensed and then purchased outright the exclusive rights to 86-DOS. It modified the 86 – DOS to run on the Prototype of PC built by IBM and later on tailored it to work on the actual “Acorn” And of course, they didn’t forget to rename it to MS – DOS!
So finally, when IBM PC was launched, it could run 3 Operating Systems: PC – DOS, CP/M and P – DOS. IBM had renamed MS – DOS to PC – DOS and sold it for free along with the PC. Even when some people found CP/M superior to MS – DOS, just because CP/M was more expensive than PC – DOS (MS – DOS) it couldn’t quite grab the market. MS – DOS, soon, became extremely popular. Microsoft was smart enough not to sell the rights of MS – DOS to IBM. So when IBM clones started eating IBM’s market share, Microsoft made sure that MS – DOS runs and gets sold with the IBM Clone PCs as well!
Much is written about how Microsoft became what it is today and what tactics they used to completely monopolize the software market. The history is well known…
What is not much known is that Gary Kildall died in 1994, almost unnoticed to the computer world. Novell acquired the assets of Digital Research, and Caldera acquired those rights in 1996.
Gordon Eubanks, president and CEO of Oblix and a former colleague of Kildall, said, “The real issue wasn't that Gary refused to talk to IBM. The real issue was that Microsoft had a much better vision for the business”
I sometimes wonder when somebody says, “I want to become Bill Gates”, do they really know how many Gary Kildalls, Ray Noordas have perished before and when a Bill Gates was made? Well, of course, I’m not a pessimist because, somewhere at the back of my mind, even I hum the song by Goo Goo Dolls when I read about Gates, “If I could be like that, I would give anything… Just to live one day (well, in fact, all of my lifeJ) in his shoes…“
Regards,
Abhishek
P.S.
1) Well, the timing for this writeup couldn’t have been better as Bill Gates is arriving in India tomorrow on a whirlwind tour.
3) It is yet another coincidence that it just turned out to be the 13th write up in this seriesJ Well, somebody had to be 13th, right?
posted by Gyan for the Day! | 7:12 pm
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