If you're asking present company at large, I have no very strong opinion. If you're asking me particularly, 1) I know too little about OS/2 to opine very strongly. But the fact that OS/2 didn't go very far says to me that 2) IBM may have been smart to sell to Microsoft: IBM's strength is in MVS. I rather doubt that if they'd held on to ... what was it they sold to Microsoft? DOS, was it? If they'd held on to it, I doubt that it would be worth now to IBM what it became to MS. MS did better with the PC market, IBM continues to do well with mainframes.
And of course we all benefit from that division of labor. I'm ~glad~ we have cheap and plentiful PCs, as well as top-of-the-line mainframes. I say again, the fact that MS made zillions from their decisions doesn't mean IBM could have done it instead. --- Bob Bridges, [email protected], cell 336 382-7313 /* The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. -George Bernard Shaw */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Jon Perryman Sent: Monday, August 7, 2023 14:33 IBM....sold software that wasn't as profitable as MVS but not a complete loss. They didn't see the potential of selling lots of small stuff (MS Windows & Office) and decided to concentrate on MVS. Microsoft net worth is now 100X IBM. Once IBM decided it was a mistake, they started investing into OS/2. How do you rate these businesses choices? --- On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 11:02:23 AM PDT, Bob Bridges <[email protected]> wrote: Just to keep things complicated, if I sell X to company M, and company M makes a mint on it, it doesn't ~necessarily~ follow that it was a mistake for me to sell it. Could be that M was likely to make a mint on X and I was not. And after all, is IBM worse off because Microsoft is selling PCs to the world? Seems to me you could argue that the ubiquity of PCs is ~helping~ IBM mainframe sales. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Jon Perryman Sent: Monday, August 7, 2023 13:27 On the whole, I consider IBM excellent compared to how other companies but it's undeniable that they have made some bonehead choices. Was it a smart decision for IBM to sell the software that became Microsoft?.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
