Microsoft vs. GM

mrcheeks

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Dec 27, 2001
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At a recent computer expo (COMDEX),Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,

"If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........Twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads...

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single 'This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation' warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask 'Are you sure?' before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the 'Start' button to turn the engine off.

Please share this with your friends who love - but sometimes hate - their computer!
 

JEFF247

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Feb 23, 2004
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Microsoft is pretty much a monopoly with a lot of mediocre products. Bill Gates was lucky that IBM chose his OS (that he bought from someone else) instead 5 or 6 other possibe vendors. He won the OS lottery but really hasn't shown much in the way of innovation or leadership. Nice guy who gives a lot of money away to charities. That's the best thing he does. Steve Balmer is more likely the driving force at Microsoft.
 

realthing69

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Aug 24, 2008
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JEFF247 said:
Microsoft is pretty much a monopoly with a lot of mediocre products. Bill Gates was lucky that IBM chose his OS (that he bought from someone else) instead 5 or 6 other possibe vendors. He won the OS lottery but really hasn't shown much in the way of innovation or leadership. Nice guy who gives a lot of money away to charities. That's the best thing he does. Steve Balmer is more likely the driving force at Microsoft.
I think it was more than just luck that IBM chose MS-DOS over the others.It was the best OS for the desktop PC at the time. The mistake that IBM made was they signed an agreement that every IBM PC sold must have MS-DOS installed on it which MS collected royalties on. I think Gates was the only one clever enough back then to realize that software was actually worth something and it's software that sells hardware.

Sure MS is did some questionable things and even broke some laws but they also did great things for the software industry and for that matter the PC industry.
 

C Dick

Banned
Feb 2, 2002
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Microsoft are more sharp business people who take advantage of situations, than they are creative innovators. A friend of mine has a new car with Microsoft Sync technology that integrates the iPod, the smart phone, etc. Sure enough, the other day she had to reboot her car, she had to pull over, shut it off and restart, because it went crazy and kept asking who she wanted to call and would not just play the radio.
 

Garrett

Hail to the king, baby.
Dec 18, 2001
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realthing69 said:
I think it was more than just luck that IBM chose MS-DOS over the others.It was the best OS for the desktop PC at the time. The mistake that IBM made was they signed an agreement that every IBM PC sold must have MS-DOS installed on it which MS collected royalties on. I think Gates was the only one clever enough back then to realize that software was actually worth something and it's software that sells hardware.

Sure MS is did some questionable things and even broke some laws but they also did great things for the software industry and for that matter the PC industry.
There is little doubt Gates played IBM. He did it well. However, MS DOS was a POS. There were better alternatives. IBM just had enough muscle to make it work in the marketplace. As for MS doing great things, I am not sure I would label anything they have done as greatness. Little doubt they are smart with good marketing, but I cannot think of anything they have written I would label as great.
 

realthing69

Active member
Aug 24, 2008
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Garrett said:
There is little doubt Gates played IBM. He did it well. However, MS DOS was a POS. There were better alternatives. IBM just had enough muscle to make it work in the marketplace. As for MS doing great things, I am not sure I would label anything they have done as greatness. Little doubt they are smart with good marketing, but I cannot think of anything they have written I would label as great.
Sure MS-DOS wasn't great but was there really anything better available for the desktop??? I'm sure there was OS's with great design and ran great but there was not enough software for those OS's at that time for businesses and home users. Which means those OS's that were technically superior were useless.

OS/2 was technically superior and so was NeXT and Amiga OS but couldn't compete with the software that was available for MS-DOS. Today we have OSX and Linux giving MS a run for their money.

In the future, MS will run into problems with their legacy code supporting old applications (if not already with Vista). MS Windows have a huge install base and what ever they do, they will never make everyone happy.

Bottom line, MS is a business they are there to make money. Even if they produce crap they have enough money to try again and again. (MS Office is pretty good)

But since this thread is about MS vs GM...Both companies produced crap and one is paying the price for it while the other is still unknown???
 

The Options Menu

Slightly Swollen Member
Sep 13, 2005
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realthing69 said:
Sure MS-DOS wasn't great but was there really anything better available for the desktop??? I'm sure there was OS's with great design and ran great but there was not enough software for those OS's at that time for businesses and home users. Which means those OS's that were technically superior were useless.
Bunk. At a minimum the commercially available MacOS and Amiga OSes and hardware were superior in just about every way with a much better software stack. That's ignoring BSD, and several other DOSes. It wasn't IBM, but IBM and the fact that 'IBM Clones' made the x86 a commodity product that carried MS-DOS, and later Windows, Office, IE/Exchange/Outlook/Backoffice to the forefront. They tend to scoop up a lowest common denominator implementation that some other system did first. Microsoft also has a naty habit of 'embracing and extending' (and breaking) any standard they want to leverage their monopoly. edit: In a capitalist economy worse is often better.

Microsoft has always been better at marketing and aggressive business practises than actual innovation. This set up the modern 'Windows Tax' on new hardware, where the cost of MS Software (Generally Windows + Office) on any new system is the single biggest expense, and Microsoft makes a gross profit margin on that.
 

JEFF247

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Feb 23, 2004
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I was in the industry at that time. It was crazy.

"Gary Kildall missed out on the opportunity to supply IBM (IBM ) with the operating system for its first PC -- essentially handing the chance of a lifetime, and control of tech's future, to rival Bill Gates and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT ). In the process, he may have missed out on becoming the world's richest man."

"A group of IBMers, working on a secret project to build a personal computer, flew to Seattle in August, 1980, to see if Gates could supply them with an operating system. He couldn't -- and referred them to Kildall. When they showed up at DRI's offices the next day, Kildall's then-wife, Dorothy McEwen, the company's business manager, refused to sign their nondisclosure agreement."

I signed one of these agreements. You also had to have a filing cabinet with a lock on it for IBM documents. If anyone asked if IBM had been there you had to say no. The CIA was more open.

"If Kildall struck a handshake deal that day, it didn't stick. Sams says he did get together with Kildall in Pacific Grove a short time later, but they couldn't reach an agreement. At around the same time, he saw Gates again. He and Gates both knew of the operating system Paterson had built at Seattle Computer Co. As Sams recounts, "Gates said: 'Do you want to get [QDOS], or do you want me to?' I said: 'By all means, you get it."' Gates bought Paterson's program, called QDOS, for $50,000, renamed it DOS, improved it, and licensed it to IBM for a low per-copy royalty fee."

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_43/b3905109_mz063.htm

Interesting story.
 
All that DOS stuff was a precursor of the real fun stuff...

Virtually every personal computer run today was spawn of REAL INNOVATION. All THAT came out of Xerox's PARC institute, (Palo Alto Research Centre).

Long before Apple and Microsoft ruled the personal computer industry, PARC had a GUI, point and click mouse technology, ethernet, computers interfacing WITH each other and WYSIWYG graphics... amongst other things.
 
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