Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 22nd Nov 2011 21:39 UTC
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Member since:
2010-01-07
The truth is simpler and more mundane.
Microsoft promised to deliver a cheap, serviceable, 16 bit CP/M clone that would be ready in time for the scheduled launch of the new IBM PC.
$50 retail list vs $250 for CP/M 86.
Which shipped about six months or so later. It might as well have been five years.
The non-exclusive license would make the MS-DOS PC a viable commercial product before the cloning of the IBM PC-BIOS.
All the Windows eco-system gave these countries were de-facto hardware and software standards for the PC
For an emergent middle class entering a global market place that was a prescription for rapid growth.
The PC is - almost by definition - middle class. You work with words and numbers. You have decent housing, light and power and communications.
In contrast, OLPC has distributed a bare 2 million laptops to grade school kids globally. 1.5 million to Latin America. Not the poorest of the poor.