>>>>>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>
>
>Had there been no Digital Research (DR DOS) same might be said - IBM would have been distributing PC's with a CPM ripoff.
Had Gary Kildall not decided to go flying the day the suits from Armonk came to Santa Cruz to buy CPM they would have already had an OS when they went to Seattle to see Gates about Basic. Gary was their first stop but he sort of blew them off. I've heard various stories about whether he was confused about when they were coming or just didn't give a sh*t. He'd already made a pile ( or what was considered a pile in the pc world at that time) and was pretty interested in spending it - flying was his thing.
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.
