The 3 "What If's" of Microsoft

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From the BUSINESS section: The 3 “what if’s” of Microsoft

After discussing Microsoft’s success story on yesterday’s program, it occurred to me that if it hadn’t been for just a few lucky breaks, Bill Gates probably wouldn’t have made it to the top.

For example:

1. What if Bill Gates had never met Paul Allen?

> Bill met Paul while studying at Harvard. Paul was the one who discovered the world’s first PC, the Altair 8800, whose manufacturer became their first software client.

2. What if IBM had developed its own operating system?

> Microsoft most likely wouldn’t have developed their operating system, called MS-DOS.

Back in 1980, IBM was the world leader in commercial computers and wanted to enter the personal computer market as quickly as possible.

Instead of developing its own operating system, they chose one from Microsoft.

At the time, Microsoft didn’t have an operating system of its own, but Paul Allen knew about one called QDOS. Microsoft improved it, changed the name to MS-DOS and licensed it to IBM.

Shortly afterwards, IBM allowed other manufacturers to license its computer design, known as “clones.” Given that IBM and PC clones were useless without Microsoft’s software, Microsoft sold millions of operating systems and made a killing.

3. What if Apple had decided to license its point-and-click interface?

> In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh, a personal computer that offered an easy to use point-and-click interface.

But Apple didn’t want to license its products to other manufacturers and Microsoft’s Windows soon became the market leader.

Even Bill Gates recognized the superiority of Apple’s point-and-click interface over his command-based MS-DOS.

Check out his praise for Apple:



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Vocabulary:

Lucky break. Golpe de suerte

To make a killing. Forrarse

Published by: Drew Crosby