Actually, Microsoft, run by thr son of an IBM employee, was approached, and was referred to Digital Research's CPM for 8080, port to 8086/8088 was not ready. They sold it at $200.00 a copy, which IBM was not willing to pay. The license specified if the price was lowered, existing purchaser would get refunded the difference.
So IBM went back to MS, who bought out QDos for 8086/8088, finished the port to match CPM, and licensed to IBM. On Sat, Aug 12, 2023, 19:54 Grant Taylor < [email protected]> wrote: > On 8/7/23 12:26 PM, Jon Perryman wrote: > > Was it a smart decision for IBM to sell the software that became > > Microsoft? > > Please clarify what IBM sold to Microsoft. > > My understanding is that Microsoft, an existing but small company, came > to IBM and said "here, we have an operating system for the IBM PC that > you are developing, would you like to license copies from us for each > unit that you sell?". > > Specifically: > > - Microsoft had (MS-)DOS independent of and without IBM. > - Microsoft had a non-exclusive deal with IBM and therefor was allowed > to sell it to whomever they wanted, including directly as MS-DOS. > > Given your following statement, I doubt that you are referring to OS/2 > in your previous statement. > > > How about creating OS/2 a few years later to fill the void they sold? > > My understanding was that IBM and Microsoft co-developed OS/2 ostensibly > as a DOS successor. One of the partners decided to end the partnership. > > I'm not aware of Microsoft purchasing any rights from IBM at the time as > Microsoft went on to develop Windows NT partially based on OS/2. IBM > went on to develop and enhance OS/2. > > So I ask again, please clarify what did IBM sell to Microsoft in the > context of this thread. > > > > Grant. . . . > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
