>>>>>We should never forget that Ballmer got his start marketing soap for P & G.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>But wasn't he also the guy who snookered IBM with the proviso in the agreement that MS could continue to market DOS to other PC makers ? ( the poison pill that almost killed Apple and IBM )
>>>
>>>Exactly. He failed with both. ::)
>>
>>Depends on what you mean by "failed" If IBM had exclusive rights to DOS there would have been no Microsoft OS dominance and Balmer would be about 100 billion zillion dollars poorer. So it wasn't a total disaster <bg>
>
>... that almost killed Apple and IBM
Yes, but at the time his goal wasn't to kill IBM (they almost accomplished that themselves with Micro-channel Architecture) or Apple ( which didn't want to just own your OS but your monitor, microprocessor, printer, video card and soul ) but to just become insanely rich.
Mission accomplished <bg>
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
