Abstract
Almost from the moment IBM signed its first contract to use MS-DOS with the original IBM PC, the company began planning to replace the Microsoft OS with something else. Even by the standards of the time, DOS was regarded by many as a “toy” OS. It was a given that IBM would replace it with a more serious system as the PC market grew and developed. The question everyone was asking was “With what?”
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References
Gary Rivlin, The Plot to Get Bill Gates ( New York: Times Books/Random House, 1999 ).
Windows was formally introduced to the world at large at the 1983 Las Vegas COMDEX trade show, which I attended with MicroPro. It was impossible to walk around the show floor and not see demo screens of an evergreen viewed through a window (get it?). Windows wouldn’t actually ship until late in 1985, and when it did, it was viewed with contempt by GUI gurus enamored of Apple’s far more polished system.
IBM Chief Concedes OS/2 Has Lost Desktop War.” New York Times, August 1, 1995.
Especially after Apple’s “Lemmings” ad, which ran during the Super Bowl the year after its famous “1984” ad. The “Lemmings” ad featured a group of IBM-crazed corporate IT types marching to their demise over the edge of cliff while maniacally chanting “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go.” IT managers worldwide developed an instant dislike to Apple, and the ad was being thrown back in the company’s face years after its first and only airing. IBM would later fulfill Apple’s apocalyptic vision with OS/2 and the software publishing community.
From 1983 through 1989, Microsoft sent “evangelists” out to other software publishers at every opportunity, especially during trade shows. Prior to the widespread adoption of e-mail and the Internet, these events were considered prime opportunities to beg and cajole other companies to support Windows. During this time frame, the company was ready and eager to share technical specifications for Windows, do joint marketing, and make wide-ranging concessions in return for developer support. Most companies, with the exception of a handful such as Micrografix, a Texas-based publisher of graphics and drawing programs, rejected Microsoft in favor of IBM’s strategic OS for the desktop, OS/2.
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© 2003 Merrill R. Chapman
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Chapman, M.R. (2003). The Idiot Piper: OS/2 and IBM. In: In Search of Stupidity. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-0813-6_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-0813-6_6
Publisher Name: Apress, Berkeley, CA
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