The Soul of A New Microsoft

BusinessWeek Online is running a front page story today about the new future of Microsoft. By 'looking beyond Windows', the company is utilizing fresh blood to come up with new products like the Zune, the Xbox 360, and various online sites. While the Zune probably isn't getting off to as successful a start as they might have liked, the article argues it's a positive sign that they're at least making the attempt. From the article: "The point is that Microsoft needs to find its un-Vista. Several of them, in fact. The software giant is entering perhaps the greatest upheaval in its 30-year history. New business models are emerging--from low-cost "open-source" software to advertising-supported Web services--that threaten Microsoft's core business like never before. For investors to care about the company, it needs to find new growth markets. Its $44.3 billion in annual sales are puttering along at an 11% growth pace. Its shares, which soared 9,560% throughout the 1990s, sunk 63% in 2000 when the Internet bubble burst, and they have yet to fully recover."

Percent confusion

[Nemetroid]

Its shares, which soared 9,560% throughout the 1990s, sunk 63% in 2000 when the Internet bubble burst, and they have yet to fully recover."

If there is someone out there that thinks this was a minor loss because of the strange wording, it wasn't.

The Name is "Gary Kildall".

[reporter]

The name that you are seeking is "Gary Kildall [wikipedia.org]". His work revolutionized the operating system (OS) on personal computers (PC), and many of his ideas survive into the modern PC OS.

To summarize a very long story, an employee at Seattle Computer Products (SCP) cloned (i.e., ripped off) CP/M, which Kildall developed. Bill Gates, the young founder of Microsoft, licensed an OS to IBM, but this OS was not yet under the control of Gates. In other words, Gates sold a product that he did not actually have. After inking the deal with IBM, Gates then bought a permanent liftime license to SCP's OS. That OS morphed over a two decades into the infamous line of Windows OSes.

As for Kildall, he understandably became very bitter. Kildall was financially well off, but he never achieved either the fame or the wealth that Gates achieved. If Gates had gotten the billion-dollar wealth but Kildall had gotten the fame (for his work on OSes), then Kildall would probably have accepted the outcome. However, Kildall achieved neither the fame nor the wealth. The bitterness drove Kildall to essentially commit suicide by drinking himself to death. He died in a bar.

I understand Kildall's feelings. Someone had screwed me in the same way that Gates screwed Kildall.

Re:Percent confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, now Microsoft's annual sales is only equal to the combined gross state products of Montana and North Dakota instead of that of Utah. Pathetic! Until Microsoft has a greater annual sales that the GDP of France I won't be impressed (which at 11% growth and perhaps 3% inflation will take roughly 50 years).

On a side note: how much money does Microsoft have saved up? I figure that Microsoft, IBM, and GE should just buy the entire Pacific Northwest and form their own little corporate state. It would certainly simplify taxes.

Re:The Name is "Gary Kildall".

[bogjobber]

Why the hell does QDOS get such a bad rap for ripping off CP/M? As far as I understand it, all they did was clone the API. It had near-identical functionality as CP/M, but nobody working on QDOS had any knowledge of the actual CP/M code. When DRI stalled in discussions with IBM, Microsoft jumped on the opportunity to take their place. If Kildall really desired the fame and wealth, then he shouldn't have screwed up the business deal with IBM. What is wrong with that? Is there something I'm missing? I never hear people complaining about companies cloning IBM PC's. Am I just wildly misinformed?

Re:The Name is "Gary Kildall".

[westlake]

the as-yet unreleased CP/M-86 was {IBM's] first choice for an operating system because CP/M had the most applications at the time. Negotiations between Digital Research and IBM quickly deteriorated over IBM's non-disclosure agreement and its insistence on a one-time fee rather than DRI's usual royalty licensing plan. After discussions with Microsoft, IBM licensed an operating system similar to CP/M that a Seattle area computer company had made for its own hardware. This system became PC-DOS. CP/M-86 [wikipedia.org]

Gates gambled that he could deliver a serviceable OS in time for the scheduled release of the IBM PC. He kept the asking price low. He negotiated a non-exclusive license that helped open to door to the PC-clone.

In entrepreneur capitalism this is what separates the men from the boys. You cut a deal and you make it work.

Kidall mistakenly thought he had more time and a stronger position from which to bargain.

CP/M-86 arrived too late and cost much more than people were willing to pay.

Re:need to find their heart

[oc255]

how many company's do you know of whose business model included a goal or contingency to be bought out by Microsoft?

A couple. First, promised Unix integration in a domain. A product that would serve up /etc/passwd accounts to 2000 domains was brought to its knees by promised vaporware and then MS bought them out. Why would I buy a "Unix connector" when 2000 is promising to have it? Killed their revenue stream, was easy to make an offer. Classic vaporware, second-hand story.

Next, not so harsh, MS approached our company saying they would develop their own cost auditing software for telcos. It didn't happen and I wonder if they were just willing to see how much we'd play ball. I don't have as much details on this one. But this was first-hand.

Re:The Name is "Gary Kildall".

[Bamafan77]

"Kildall was financially well off, but he never achieved either the fame or the wealth that Gates achieved. If Gates had gotten the billion-dollar wealth but Kildall had gotten the fame (for his work on OSes), then Kildall would probably have accepted the outcome. However, Kildall achieved neither the fame nor the wealth. The bitterness drove Kildall to essentially commit suicide by drinking himself to death. He died in a bar."

Anyone one who kills himself for not being rich or famous enough (especially if he's already rich and very famous in certain circles as was Kildall) probably is a miserable person anyway and in need of psychiatric help.

Additionally,from your linked Wikipedia entry: [wikipedia.org]

When the IBM PC was introduced, IBM sold the operating system as an unbundled (but necessary) option. One of the operating system options was PC-DOS, priced at US$60. A new port of CP/M, called CP/M-86, was offered a few months later and priced at $240. Largely due to its early availability and the substantial price difference, PC-DOS became the preferred operating system.

You say Gates "ripped off" Kildall. It sounds to me that Gates sold a compelling alternative that was 4 times cheaper and did the job well enough that users didn't care. Kildall was a rich guy who got beat in business by someone who was smarter in this specific instance. Hardly worth killing yourself over. It's time we stopped feeling so sorry for this guy (outside of his obvious need for psychiatric help).

Re:You forgot ...

[soft_guy]

They paid that to get Apple to drop the lawsuits they had going for Microsoft stealing the source code for QuickTime and putting it into Video for Windows, plus a license on all of Apple's patents.

Re:Instead of luck, they'd need to compete

[Anonymous Coward]

Don' want to argue on every point, but:

> Excel introduced pivot tables.

Lotus Improv predates this

> Microsoft introduced the ability to embed one app's object into another app's document and allow the user to edit the object inplace using the object app's tools (I refer to OLE). Windows has had that since 1993 while Linux and Mac still have yet to have anything to rival it.

Yeah sure. So, what was Xerox 8010 doing in 1981 ?

> Microsoft had Terraserver, which Google ripped off with Google Maps.

Not microsoft alone: "The genesis of Terraserver technology dates back to 1988. It was developed in a joint research project among Aerial Images, Microsoft, the U.S. Geological Survey and Compaq."

> Microsoft introduced the ability to edit and recompile C code while debugging it.

NeXTstep had that in and out around NS3beta, called fix-and-continue.

I don't want to dig the others, but all that 'innovation' stuff is silly. In most case, one can find prior art.

Re:Instead of luck, they'd need to compete

[Anonymous Coward]

--Weren't they the first to have a web browser component usable by other apps?
They weren't. What about BeOS replicants?
--And they have MCE, which Apple is copying with FrontRow. And now there are rumors that Apple will be copying Tablet PC.
No. There were THOUSANDS of older Home Theater PC Interfaces FOR YEARS. They just called that "Media Center".
--Excel had tabbed worksheets long before the concept was added to browsers.
Tabs? Like 1-2-3' sheets?
--Excel introduced pivot tables.
Like 1-2-3 again? Excel was a COMPLETE ripoff.
--Microsoft introduced the "squiggly" line for on-the-fly spell check.
Yep, they really had to struggle their brains in order to draw a red line!! (WP had inverse background for this).
--Microsoft introduced the ability to embed one app's object into another app's document and allow the user to edit the object inplace using the object app's tools (I refer to OLE). Windows has had that since 1993 while Linux and Mac still have yet to have anything to rival it.
That's good, except OLE is IBM's invention. Not Gates.
--Microsoft had Terraserver, which Google ripped off with Google Maps.
You got me here.
--Microsoft introduced the ability to edit and recompile C code while debugging it.
Yeah, they ported that to Basic, but it had always been there on popular BASIC interpreters, even non MS's.
--Microsoft introduced the "floating pallette" of Mac Office.
The what?
--They have many innovations in Office 2007.
Like?