Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 27th Apr 2007 18:20 UTC, submitted by flanque
"It's amazing how many people who have Microsoft Windows everywhere look flummoxed when asked whether Windows is their "standard" for desktop computing. The reason they are thrown by this question is typically because they haven't thought about it that way before. In all likelihood, they never actually made a proactive decision to select Windows, in the sense of looking at alternatives and making a conscious objective choice. So how did they end up with it?"
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RE[4]: How did it happen?
by Dave_K on Sat 28th Apr 2007 11:30
in reply to "RE[3]: How did it happen?"
Member since:2005-11-16
Microsoft mainly won because it was the only one who could or would supply. Gates' genius was to see that you can't have it all, and that the OS was plenty.
Microsoft weren't the only company to sell their OS to different hardware manufacturers. Digital Research were selling CP/M before Microsoft bought DOS, and later on supplied their own DR-DOS and GEM GUI. Then there was UNIX...
A software company wanting to sell to as many customers as possible was hardly visionary genius, or even anything unusual.
I wonder how well Microsoft's OS would have done on the market if it had competed on a level playing field, rather than being bundled with the industry standard IBM hardware...
RE[5]: How did it happen?
by Almafeta on Sat 28th Apr 2007 11:55
in reply to "RE[4]: How did it happen?"
Member since:2007-02-22
I wonder how well Microsoft's OS would have done on the market if it had competed on a level playing field, rather than being bundled with the industry standard IBM hardware...
That's rather like saying I wonder how well Intel's x86 would have done on the market if it had competed on a level playing field, rather than being bundled with the industry standard IBM motherboard...
Sell a computer without an OS, force the consumer to purchase the OS at retail price without the bulk discounts of OEM Windows, and see how quickly you go out of business. Even the monolithic chunks of plastic that the Windows/Intel model replaced included default operating systems; it's one of those things you really can't do without.
Member since:
2005-10-12
"the most important thing Microsoft has done was lower the bar of entry for hardware manufacturers."
This is very true. There was no way for any of the other suppliers to have won, because they insisted on locking their OS to their hardware, and the problem was the market demand was so great this meant there was no way for them to sell all the machines people wanted to buy. They just could not physically make all the machines people wanted
If you remember, at the time, Apple was supply limited. It just could not make enough. It priced at levels to maximize returns from what it could produce, but this meant that it resigned itself to supplying a tiny proportion of the market.
Microsoft on the other hand, could supply all the machines any hardware company could make.
The effect was to segment the market into two chunks. One segment was for OSs which were not tied to hardware. The other, and it turned out to be tiny by comparison, was for OSs which were tied to hardware.
The reason the second category shrank was that people were going to buy computers, and the suppliers of hardware linked OSs in effect refused to sell to them. They never actually said no, but that was the market consequence of their behaviour.
Microsoft mainly won because it was the only one who could or would supply. Gates' genius was to see that you can't have it all, and that the OS was plenty. Jobs weakness was to think all that mattered was having it all, and the result was being a huge fish in a tiny pond.