http://artsweb.uwaterloo.ca/~cmccolm/hard.html

Wallace, Jim and Jim Erickson. Hard Drive - Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire. (New York: HarperBusiness, 1993).

[8] "If bloodlines are an indication of future success, then Bill Gates was born into a family generous with its gifts."

mn: Though Hard Drive later attributes much of Microsoft's success to Gates' unwavering drive this opening quotation subtly reinforces the idea that affluence is a big factor in success.

[10] "William Henry Gates III was born October 28, 1955, shortly after 9:00 P.M."

mn: This information cited to get a better idea of the man behind the company. Though Gates' D.O.B. has little to do with the company, the information is useful for developing a complete profile of Gates. It is possible that it may come in handy (i.e. Gates became friends with XYZ because they shared the same birth date). The author of Hard Drive uses this information to tie astrology to Gates, citing:

[10] "He was born under the sign of Scorpio, and the traits ascribed yo his astrological sign would prove eerily correct: aggressive and stimulated by conflict; prone to changing moods quickly; a dominating personality with outstanding powers of leadership."

mn: This astrological tie seems like an attempt by the author to mythologize Microsoft. Mention on page 11 of The Making of Microsoft by Daniel Ichbiah and Susan Knepper. (Another potential source)

[12] "One of the first major assignments in his fourth grade class was to write a four or five page report on a particular part of the human body. Gates wrote more than 30 pages."

mn: Shows Bill Gates' tenacity.

[15] "'It was a rich environment in which to learn,' Gates said of his childhood. It was also extraordinarily competitive. His competitive fire was ignited early in life and fanned by childhood games, sports, and the driving ambition of his parents."

mn: Seems to reinforce the idea that the author is trying to tie affluence with success. Gates was sent to Lakeside, Seattle's most exclusive school, home to the sons of the rich and powerful. [18].

[18] "He would cut his first business deals at Lakeside, and form his first money-making company."

mn: There is no indication in Hard Drive that Gates' Lakeside business deals ever made any money. What is indicated is that Gates' business deals secured him time on the school's computers, which were ran on a "time sharing system."

[19] "Lakeside was extraordinary: it allowed students to develop their own interests, and Gates quickly did just that."

[21] "But Gates was not the only computer-crazed kid at Lakeside. He found he had to compete for time on the computer with a handful of others who were similarly drawn to the room as if by a powerful gravitational force. Among them was a soft-spoke, Upper School student by the name of Paul Allen, who was two years older than Gates."

mn: Paul Allen and Gates founded Microsoft. Though Gates is often cited as the architect of Microsoft, Hard Drive and a number of other books cite Allen as very influential during the first few years of Microsoft. A profile of both software architects is therefore important. Mention of Programmers at Work by Susan Lammers, another potential resource. On pages 24-25 the author quotes Gates as saying that Paul Allen had "read four times as much as I had." The author goes on to quote Gates asking about things like Guns and Nuclear Reactors, implying that Gates' knowledge is limited, and that Gates is not as smart as he has been depicted.

[26] "As a prelude to doing business in the 'real world,' Gates and Allen formed the Lakeside Programmer's Group, along with two of their friends, Richard Weiland and Kent Evans."

[26] "'I was the mover,' Gates said. 'I was the guy who said, ''Let's call the real world and try to sell something to it.'''"

[30] "Allen would hoist Gates on garbage cans so he could poke around for important tidbits of information left behind by the 'day shift.'"

mn: Allen and Gates, Dumpster Diving. Seems to be included for a) humour reasons, b) to show the extent that Gates would go (jumping in garbage cans) to support his habit, c) to tie Microsoft to garbage. (Which could be used to imply that the software is trash, or that for all his power, Gates is just a garbage digger."

[33-34] "Without discussing the matter with Allen and Weiland, their partners in the Lakeside Programmer's Group, Gates and Evans negotiated to buy the valuable DEC computer tapes from C-Cubed at a cut-rate price. They hid the tapes in the Lakeside teletype machine. When an angry Allen found out, he took the tapes. Gates and Evans threatened legal action, despite the fact that they were barely teenagers."

mn: Suggests that Gates would be willing to screw his own partners in order to make money. Later in the book Wallace and Erickson talk about how Microsoft appropriates the technology of other companies after "partnering with them." The idea of getting screwed by Microsoft is repeated often in Hard Drive.

[36] "Gates used to be teased at Lakeside because he was clearly so much brighter than the other students. Even in an environment like Lakeside, where smart kids tended to command respect, anyone as smart as Gates got teased by some of the others."

mn: Not particularly useful to my essay, but another link in creating a profile of its chairman.

[37] "He was also incredibly obnoxious...he was sure of himself, he was aggressively, intimidatingly smart...He was one of those guys who knew he was smarter than everyone else and knew he was right all the time..."

mn: Is this a description of Gates or Microsoft? Microsoft is depicted as aggressive and intimidating later in the book.

[43] "It's not clear how much, if anything, the group made in royalties from their payroll project, but ISI gave them about $10,000 worth of free computer time."

mn: Earlier I suggested that Hard Drive did not make it clear how much Gates and Allen make at Lakeside, or if it was a money-making venture. This is just following up on that note. Pages 44-45 introduce another company Gates and Allen formed called Traf-O-Data, from which they reportedly grossed $20,000.

[47] "Gates, with a nearly photographic memory, merely glanced at the pages for a few seconds and had the material memorized."

mn: More Gates profiling. Pages 48-49 talk about TRW, a giant defense contractor who approached Gates.

[49] "Up to that point, we had never been paid real money for doing anything on a computer....To get paid for something we loved doing...we thought that was great."

mn: If this is true then my note above which quotes revenue from Traf-O-Data at $20,000 must be false. Part of the problem with this book is that it is inconsistent, it says one thing, then contradicts it later.

[55] "That first year he took one of Harvard's most difficult math courses, called 'Math 55.' Almost everyone in the class had scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Gates did well in the course, but he was not the best."

mn: Seems like an attempt to somewhat normalize Gates. By suggesting that Gates was not the top of his class, Wallace and Erickson imply that smarts are not the key ingredient to success. Many books on business talk about how you can have a flawless product that fails because you don't know how to market the product or manage your company.

[60] "Allen was much more eager to start a company than Gates, who was worried about the reaction from his family if he dropped out of school...'Paul kept saying, let's start a company, let's do it,' Gates recalled. 'Paul saw that the technology was there. He kept saying, 'It's gonna be too late. We'll miss it.'"

mn: Gates went to Harvard for his sophomore year instead, but ended up leaving. [63] Gates met Steve Ballmer (current CEO of Microsoft) at Harvard. The authors depict Ballmer as a cheerleader without real programming experience. (Mathematician)

[66] "But Paul Allen saw the future. He may have seen it even more clearly than Gates."

mn: Authors Wallace and Erickson depict Allen almost as an anti-Gates, brilliant, but much more down to earth than Gates is. Interestingly little is noted about Allen's personal life other than he is portrayed as being easier to get along with than Gates. At some point the authors note Gates' relationships, but Paul Allen is never dealt with in the same manner. It is likely because Gates is the key player in Microsoft, but it is interesting that there is a subtle implication that Allen is more intelligent and aware than Gates.

[72] "...it was (Ed) Roberts who coined the term 'personal computer' as a part of an ad campaign for Altair. 'I was trying to convey a small machine you could afford to buy that didn't sound like a toy,' he said."

mn: Ed Roberts is the founder of MITS, the company credited with the creation of the first personal computer, the Altair. Gates and Allen wrote a version of the BASIC programming language for the Altair.

[74} "Gates proceeded to explain, with youthful bravado, that he and his friend had developed a BASIC that could be adapted for the Altair computer. In fact, they didn't have a program at all..."

[75] "Like a couple of school boys caught in a lie, they were furiously trying to cover their tracks. They had told Roberts they had a BASIC, and now they had to produce one--before all those other competitors who undoubtedly were also trying to make good on their exaggerated claims."

[75] "For the next eight weeks, the two would work day and night in the computer room, trying to do what some experts at Intel said couldn't be done--develop a high-level computer language for the 8080 chip."

mn: Microsoft has a track record of making promises, and not delivering on the promises, or delivering at a much later date. I'm not sure where I saw it, but some source suggested that Microsoft is the reason why the term Vapourware was first coined. Gates and Allen's version of BASIC for the Altair seems to be the only major software that Gates ever had a hand in writing. This is at least all I have been able to find in books... However, a little over 4 years ago I came across software written by Microsoft for the Commodore 64. From what I recall it was word processing software. Gates may have had a hand in coding software that was less successful. The rest of Gates' role seems to be management rather than hacker.

[76] "While Gates concentrated his efforts on writing code for the BASIC, Allen did the more technical work with the PDP-10 in the Aiken Computer Center. They would have to create their BASIC with some brilliant innovation. Since they didn't have an Altair, Allen had to make the PDP-10 mimic the 8080 chip."

mn: This is significant for a couple of reasons. First, Gates invited Allen to work on the PDP-10's at the Aiken Computer Center (Harvard) where Allen was NOT a student. Microsoft has been criticized because they used University resources to develop commercial software. However, other companies have started the same way. Netscape began as the university web browser MOSAIC. Secondly, the quote is important because it implies that Gates was the primary coder. In fact the two also hired a third person [77] Monte Davidoff. Davidoff wrote the match package portion of BASIC, "floating point routines" which could manipulate numbers in the computer. (Note Center is Center not Centre, whether this is an editorial mistake or not, it should be checked on the web)

[77] "He (Davidoff) would become the forgotten man of BASIC."

[78] "...there was never any word of Monte Davidoff. He was mentioned once, just briefly, in the book Fire in the Valley. But even then, his first name was misspelled as 'Marty.'"

mn: Goes to establishing that Microsoft has a habit of appropriating other people's work and not crediting their contribution.

[81] "But Gates soon faced a problem that could not be solved with his programming wizardry. Harvard officials had found out that he and Allen had been making extensive use of the university's PDP-10 to develop a commercial product."

mn: just repeating what I mentioned earlier. Pages 82/3 note than nothing serious came out of the incident.

[90] "Microsoft--an abbreviation for microcomputer software--was born in the summer of 1975. (The name was originally 'Micro-Soft;' the hyphen in the name was soon dropped.)"

mn: Just establishing the official formation date of Microsoft. (The software above was formed under the name Traf-O-Data)

[90-91] "The initial Microsoft partnership agreement called for a 60/40 split in favor of Gates, since he argued that he had done more of the initial development work on BASIC. This was later changed to a 64/36 split. (By the time Microsoft went public in 1986, Gates owned more than 11 million shares of the company's stock and Allen more than six million shares.)"

mn: Is this an attempt to show Gates' greed? Gates may have worked on the BASIC code, but without a processor emulator the project could have never gone forward, and the task was beyond Gates' ability (Hardware). Allen could have just as easily argued that since he had to write the emulator that his contribution was more significant.

[92] "Bunnell designed Microsoft's first logo and letterhead. He would go on to become one of the country's leading publishers of personal computer magazines."

mn: David Bunnell, technical writer for MITS, where Gates and Allen were working after they wrote their version of BASIC for the Altair.

[92] "On July 22, 1975 they signed a formal licensing agreement with Ed Roberts regarding the rights ot their BASIC for the 8080 computer chip. The agreement, prepared by Gates with help from his father and an Albuquerque attorney, broke new legal ground."

[92-3]"The agreement, which was to run for ten years, gave MITS exclusive, worldwide rights to license BASIC, including the right to sublicense BASIC to third parties. MITS agreed not to license BASIC to any third party without first obtaining a secrecy agreement that prohibited the unauthorized disclosure of BASIC. What would later turn out to be the most important part of the agreement was a paragraph that stated: 'The Company (MITS) agrees to use its best efforts to license, promote, and commercialize the Program (BASIC). The Company's failure to use its best efforts...shall constitute sufficient grounds and reasons to terminate this agreement...' The contract with MITS would serve as a model for future software licensing agreements in the growing microcomputer business, and it helped establish industry standards."

[93] "They could only earn a maximum of $180,000 in royalties according to the terms of the contract."

mn: This is the first indication of the legal maneuvering Gates and Allen managed. It is significant not just because it set an industry standard, but because it let Allen and Gates get out of a bad situation. Roberts refused to license BASIC to competitors making similar boards to MITS. Gates and Allen claimed MITS was not doing its best to promote their BASIC, and thus were able to dissolve the agreement. Page 98 talks about how Roberts wanted a floppy storage system for the Altair in 1975.

[98] "Although Gates is generally thought of as the father of Microsoft BASIC, which became an industry standard and was the foundation on which his software company was built, there are those in the industry who believe Allen deserves at least as much credit as Gates, and possibly more. According to them, the legend of Gates has risen to such Olympian heights that it sometimes overshadows reality."

[99] "When you read things about Bill writing BASIC, for example, to me, that's a little bit of a joke. He was part of a team. I think it's accurate to say that if you went back and looked at BASIC three or four years later and said, 'Okay who made the most significant contribution?' it was Paul Allen...Bill was part of a team effort. He made very important contributions. But if any one person were to be said to be the author of BASIC, I think it would be Paul...in terms of who sat down and did the work for BASIC as we know it today, it's got to be Paul who did the lion's share."

mn: Quote from Ed Curry (MITS executive vice president soon after Allen arrived). One of the criticisms of Microsoft is that it appropriates technology. Gates taking the lion share of credit for work that Paul Allen may have done mirrors the way Gates managed (Gates is no longer President or CEO but seems to maintain control as the major stock holder) his company.

[101] "At this point, no one at Homebrew who had ordered an Altair had received a copy of BASIC, though they had sent MITS their money for the program. According to one account, someone from Homebrew picked up the punched paper tape containing BASIC lying on the floor near the Altair. Someone else later ran off copies of the tape, and at the next Homebrew meeting a large box of tapes were passed out to anyone who wanted one. Gradually, then exponentially, BASIC spread from computer club to computer club like a circus. And no one was paying for it."

mn: Page 100 notes that Gates wrote a letter condemning homebrew people for illegally copying BASIC. But many of the group apparently had already paid for the software and never received it. Whether it was a MITS problem or vapourware problem (ironing out bugs with hardware) is not completely clear, but Wallace and Erickson imply that Roberts was just lazy and had not shipped BASIC.

[102] "At one point, frustrated and demoralized, Gates offered to sell Roberts all rights and ownership to BASIC for about $6500. In hindsight, it would have been the bonehead deal of the century. 'Clearly, it would have been a bad decision on Bill's part, because there might not be a Microsoft today,' said Eddie Curry. But Roberts decided not to take Gates up on the offer."

mn: Some of the details Wallace and Erickson note don't seem to jive with other aspects of the book and this is definately one of those details. If Gates and Allen could make up to $180,000 in royalties there is no way they would have sold BASIC for a measly $6500, demoralized or not.

[102] "Gates...asked Bunnell to publish a letter in the Altair newsletter, Computer Notes. Entitled 'An Open Letter to Hobbyists,' Gates noted that the most important thing inhibiting computer hobbyists was the lack of good software."

[103] "He then accused hobbyists of stealing software programs."

[103] "Bunnell not only printed the diatribe in the Altair newsletter, but he made sure it ran in most of the major industry publications, including the newsletter of the Homebrew Computer Club. Gates' letter caused quite a stir. The Southern California Computer Society, which had been visited by the MITS-mobile in early 1975 and by now had several thousand members, threatened to sue him."

mn: Microsoft has continued to be one of the strongest voices in the "battle" against software piracy. The past few years Microsoft has come up with various schemes to prevent software piracy, including: licensing changes, coding Windows XP-based software such that it will not work the second time it is installed on the same system (requiring customers to call Microsoft at the customer's expense to get a key), and perhaps the most hair-brained scheme: installing Windows XP on machines and providing only a "recovery partition" instead of a recovery CD. (Hair brained because if the partition with the restore gets corrupted then consumers are screwed!)

[104] "Others argued the altruistic position that BASIC belonged in the public domain, an argument that had some merit since Gates and Allen had created BASIC using the PDP-10 at Harvard, a computer funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. In other words, these people argued, the computer time they had used was paid for with taxpayers' money."

mn: This note should be tied to an earlier note on Gates and Allen's use of the PDP10 at Harvard.

[107] "The BASIC that Gates and Allen had written in those eight frantic weeks at Harvard a year earlier had now spread all over the country, thanks in large measure to the very actions of hobbyists Gates had so bitterly denounced. BASIC had become a de facto standard in the young microcomputer industry. When new computer companies joined the revolution and needed a BASIC language, the came to Albuquerque and did business with Gates and Microsoft."

mn: ACK!!! Many of these quotes are irrelevant to the question of how Microsoft controls the industry. I am torn between giving a comprehensive background of Microsoft and using the time to investigate more relevant issues. I feel details like the above are important for a world view of Microsoft and its founders, but jotting down just a few notes takes a tremendous amount of time. This book is over 400 pages and I have a number of others that I have read that are on par with the size of this book. At the rate I am going typing up notes it will take me until the end of the month just to finish a few of the books I have already read and highlighted. Yet it would be easier in the final stages to literally cut, arrange, and write my paper based on the organized ideas. At this point I am going to only include the most relevant quotations. Those that I think could aid my argument, but are not a top priority will get highlighted (in the books I have bought) in a different manner to make them stand out.

[109] "Allen, even more than Gates, had a knack for figuring out the direction of the industry three or four years down the road."

mn: Irrelevant, but I couldn't resist since it reinforces earlier notes.

[117] "Given his white-hot drive, and his determination to trounce the opposition, to do whatever had to be done to dominate the software market, this rare combination of technical genius and managerial acumen was an unbeatable combination."

mn: Whatever it takes! Internal memos show a similar hostile attitude to companies Microsoft would face in the future.

[120] "'We Set the Standard' became the company's motto in Albuquerque."

mn: Book: Programmers At Work cited on p.121.

[121] "It was bad enough that Gates rewrote other programmers' code. But at least once he also got credit for their work. When Microsoft published the MS-DOS Encyclopiedia, the preface to this huge technical manual credited Gates for developing Standalone Disk BASIC. In fact, the program was developed by Marc McDonald for National Cash Register in 1977."

mn: Significant because this version of basic used FAT, developed by McDonald. But also significant because of the argument that Microsoft appropriates the technology created by others. Page 122 notes that subsequent editions properly credited McDonald with the work. (but only after he confronted Gates) I am skipping a large significant section about Microsoft and IBM because another book I have provides an excellent time line in the back. I will only cover the most appropriate details.

[151] "A former top Microsoft executive said there was 'almost a viciousness' to the intensity Gates displayed when trying to secure a deal with another customer. 'I've seen Gates lose a deal in negotiations because of it.'"

[152] "Gates and Smith once blew an important deal with Intel subsidiary after Gates let his temper flare unchecked...In the course of the conversation, Gates became upset over a bad reference Microsoft had received from another division within Intel—something about Microsoft being late with delivery."

mn: Establishes arrogance. Also shows that Gates is somewhat blind (whether on purpose or not) to important points. He only focuses on what he feels is important. The main point, the customer comes second.

[163] "In June 1980, he brought in Steve Ballmer as assistant to the president."

mn: More information for the Steve Ballmer profile. Important because Ballmer is CEO now. Reference to book Blue Magic on page 167. (book seems to be about IBM, but may have a few points on Microsoft)

[175] "Meanwhile in Albuquerque, Gates was doing everything he could to help make CP/M an industry standard."

mn: (1975-7) Microsoft was not in the operating system market at this point, but it shows Microsoft's willingness to help create standards based on another company's software.

[177] "But in late 1979, the synergistic relationship between Microsoft and Digital began to unravel after Kildall packaged his operating system with a BASIC that had been developed by Gordon Eubanks; one of his students at the Naval Postgraduate School."

mn: I wonder if this experience was the basis for Gates doing the same to other companies? In another book I have read it notes how Microsoft gave preferential space in Windows Channels (IE 4) to certain companies they deemed "good partners." Some partners who were sitting on the fence with other software (i.e. Netscape 4) were punished by excluding them from the channels. This quote shows a company Gates considered a partner burning Microsoft. (or at least Gates and Allen)

[183] "Five months later in September...Paterson had his operating system up and running for the first time. He called it 86-QDOS, which stood for quick and dirty operating system."

mn: Important because Tim Paterson, not Microsoft, is the father of DOS (Disk Operating System). Pages 184-185 also note how Seattle Computer (the company Gates and Allen were working for) shipped 86-QDOS first, not IBM. Also noted is how close Paterson's 86-QDOS resembles CP/M.

[184] "'I told him I didn't copy anything. I just took his printed documentation and did something that did the same thing.'"

mn: Paterson talking to Kildall. Microsoft is often accused of appropriating other company's software, this is one of the methods that they may have used. (Note that legally this is not appropriating the other company's software) But if Kildall's 86-QDOS did in fact borrow code from CP/M then Microsoft (who would buy 86-DOS) would be guilty of appropriating technology. (I have read that Kildall died in a plane accident so asking him is not possible) Page 193 mentions a book called The Soul of a New Machine, which doesn't look like it has relevance, but may have one or two Microsoft notes.

[196] "Microsoft didn't make the January 12 deadline. It was not until February that O'Rear finally got 86-DOS to run on the prototype."

mn: On IBM's prototype personal computer. O'Rear a Microsoft employee. Page 203 talks about how Gates bought 86-QDOS from Seattle Computer (who Paterson was working for). A few pages earlier is mention that Paterson went to work for Microsoft. The agreement involved Microsoft providing SC with updated versions of DOS. (Paterson was no longer with SC to update it so SC caved easily)

[202] "For only $50,000, Gates bought all rights to 86-DOS previously owned by Seattle Computer Products."

[205] "Microsoft's software for the PC included BASIC and the game Adventure, the company's first product that was not a language or operating system...Adventure, which was in the public domain, was originally written on a mainframe computer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

mn: Shows Microsoft using the labour of others to create their own product. As a software author I have written software and released it as freeware (with the stipulation that the original author information be included in any subsequent derivatives). Months after I released my software another programmer rewrote the program, removing my name from the splash screens (left in the code itself). I'm not sure the original author of Adventure would have intended any company come in and use their work for commercial purposes.

[211] "Gates wanted to eliminate his opponents from the playing field. 'Bill learned early on that killing the competition is the name of the game,' said a Microsoft executive who was with the company in the early 1980s."

mn: Eliminate and killing imply that Gates murders innovation. The author's use of eliminate before the killing quotation lends strength to the word killing. The sense I get is not a quick pistol whipping but a crushing, total annihilation.

[212] "'There was absolute determination on Bill's part to take Digital Research out of the market,' said Curry. 'It's part of Bill's strategy. You smash people. You either make them line up or you smash them.'"

mn: Digital Research is Kildall's company (CP/M). Quote reinforces the crushing feeling which the authors present through much of the book.

[216] "More than 500 fixes had to be made to DOS 2.0 before it was ready to work on the PC/XT."

mn: Microsoft has been criticized for their buggy code and insecure operating system. Up to page 222 introduces VisiCalc and describes how Microsoft targeted VisiCalc with their product Multiplan.

[222] "Multiplan was finished in 1981, but extensive beta testing delayed its release."

mn: While this goes against the previous quote, it reinforces the criticism that Microsoft is always delaying the release of their software.

[233] "According to one Microsoft programmer, the problems encountered by Lotus were not unexpected. A few of the key people working on DOS 2.0, he claimed, had a saying at the time that 'DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run.' They managed to code a few hidden bugs into DOS 2.0 that caused Lotus 1-2-3 to break down when it was loaded. 'There were as few as three or four people who knew this was being done,' he said. He felt the highly competitive Gates was the ringleader."

mn: This is not as credible since the source is not really identified. However, identification might mean the programmer in question would be taken to court by Microsoft. I have heard similar things about hooks in Windows, so there does seem to be a grain of truth in the claim. Clearly an anti-competitive practise and definitely not in the best interest of customers.

[244] "Unfortunately, the first version of Word for the PC was a fairly mediocre program, and reviews were mixed."

mn: The quality of Microsoft software has also been questioned. However, as the author's note, Gates likes to keep plugging until he gets things right.

[256] "Gates' boast nine months before—that Microsoft would be the first to market with a graphical user interface—evaporated like so much hot air."

mn: More vapourware.

[257] "He knew the still-secret Macintosh with its graphical user interface and mouse was going to shake up the industry when it released in early 1984, and by announcing Windows now Microsoft could make a preemptive strike."

mn: One of the techniques Microsoft uses to compete is announcing products really early in order to prevent consumers from flocking to other products.

*** Update 03/15/2003: ***

[257] "The announcement would also help to neutralize not just competing software publishers but also IBM."

mn: "Neutralize" is polite compared to the other adjectives used to describe Microsoft’s efforts towards competitors. Most descriptions use adjectives like crush or demolish. When I think of neutralize, I think of a needle injection. It seems appropriate here because at this point IBM and Microsoft are partners. IBM is a Leviathan of the computer industry, but Microsoft neutralized IBM’s power. IBM could have screwed Microsoft were it not for Microsoft’s preemptive strikes.

[258] "Gates explained to the press that Windows would end the problem of compatibility of applications once and for all, and that it would be able to run most software written for MS-DOS."

mn: (Talking about Windows) Competitors have accused Microsoft of the exact opposite of this statement, instead of fixing compatibility problems, Microsoft intentionally created compatibility problems in order to keep competitors out.

[269] "Microsoft received the first prototypes of the Macintosh in late January of 1982. Programmers needed a machine before they could design applications for it."

mn: Microsoft met with Xerox Corporation in 1978. (Same page) Microsoft has always maintained that it garnered the idea for the graphical user environment from Xerox, but the above quote seems to confirm that Microsoft actually stole the idea of the GUI from the Macintosh. While Gates may have seen Xerox’s GUI early in 1978 it does not seem to have influenced Gates because Microsoft released MS-DOS in 1981. Windows was not released until 1985, three years after Microsoft had access to the first Macintosh prototypes. No doubt the Macintosh fueled Microsoft’s need to develop a graphical user interface. Had Microsoft truly been influenced by Xerox they would have released a GUI before Apple. Four years after seeing Xerox’s OS, Apple developed a GUI. Three years after seeing Apple’s OS Microsoft developed a GUI (7 years after Xerox). Common sense suggests that Microsoft is lying about Xerox’s influence. Microsoft did hire a number of Xerox programmers, but they did so to compete with Apple, not Xerox.

[271] check People article entitled "Microsoft’s Drive to Dominate Software."

[277] "Borland had successfully launched a series of computer languages called Turbo Pascal, which were much faster than anything Microsoft had."

Mn: Competitors have repeatedly slammed Microsoft for the quality of their software. This helps reinforce that argument.

[277] "Gates was angry that Microsoft, the original microcomputer language company, was being beaten so badly by a mail-order startup company only a year old."

Mn: Microsoft practically bankrupted Borland. Startups have suggested that Microsoft prevents entry into many markets. Borland’s example disproves the entry theory, because Microsoft was a language company. But when I last checked Borland was a small fry in the programming languages department.

[278] "It had been more than a year and a half since the chairman had vowed to put Lotus out of business."

Mn: Microsoft has been accused of being a big bully/predator. This language confirms this accusation. Microsoft intentionally targets competitors with the focus of putting them out of business. Competition is not about taking a slice from a sector, but completely dominating the sector.

[281] "In mid-1984, Gates completely changed his strategy and decided Excel would be developed for the Macintosh, rather than the IBM PC and its clones. Lotus was designing a new spreadsheet called Jazz for Apple, and Microsoft simply could not allow Lotus to establish an applications foothold with the Mac as it had with the PC."

Mn: A killer application by Lotus on the Macintosh may have changed the direction of the industry. Not only does this move by Microsoft neutralize Lotus’ foothold on the Mac platform, but it helps move people to Microsoft products. Microsoft’s biggest profit comes from applications. It uses Office to keep people weaned on Windows. Microsoft uses its domination in the applications market to dominate the operating system market. Not only was Microsoft preventing Lotus from entering the Apple market, but keeping Apple from dominating the operating system market.

[287] "But we gave the market a product that proved you could do more with a Mac than with an IBM PC."

Mn: Jeff Raikes, director of Microsoft’s applications marketing (told NY Times). Basically, Microsoft recognized that the Mac was superior to the PC. (This would include a recognition that Microsoft’s MS-DOS was inferior to MacOS)

[291] "both [women] were hired as a result of Microsoft attempting to win a lucrative government contract to provide the Air Force with computer software. The company had been told it did not have enough women in top management roles to qualify for the contract under government affirmative action guidelines."

Mn: Microsoft does what it needs to do to get a contract. Women were not a part of Microsoft until Microsoft wanted to secure this contract. This is according to a "well placed source inside Microsoft." (unnamed)

[291] "’let’s hire two women because we can pay them half as much as we will have to pay a man, and we can give them all this other ‘crap’ work to do because they are women.’ That’s directly out of Bill’s mouth."

Mn: Women are not equal inside Microsoft. Same source as above.

[296] "’Other companies already had announced windowing products, but we were able to persuade the OEMs to wait for ours."

Mn: By saying that if they used another OS they would have to pay more for products like excel, word, etc. (FIND source to prove this)

 [307] "’Most of the reason Windows didn’t get out was because Bill kept adding functionality [features] and changing the rules,’ Nikora said."

Mn: This is probably not true. First, Microsoft knew early that it couldn’t make the launch date. (Vaporware) Second, competing software products almost always had more features (Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS for example) than Microsoft’s software. The next date Microsoft would set for the release of Windows would be missed.

[314] "the first version of Windows…was a flop. It would take two major revisions before Windows was made right. Not until the release of Windows 3.0 in 1990 would it deliver as promised."

Mn: Would be interesting to see if the OS Apple developed in 1982 is comparable/better than Windows 3.0. This establishes that Microsoft’s aim was not to please customers, but beat competitors.

[315] "As the Wall Street Journal would write later, Gates used ‘High pressure tactics…to extract a virtual blank check to borrow many Macintosh ideas for Microsoft’s own products."

Mn: Again, Microsoft Windows based on Mac, not Xerox’s OS as claimed.

[315] "Under terms of that agreement, Microsoft was to develop application programs for the Macintosh. By providing Microsoft with prototypes of the Mac, as well as software tools to write those applications, Apple believed Microsoft was developing graphical user interface programs only for the Mac. Instead, Microsoft turned around and developed Windows for competing IBM clone machines."

Mn: Further proof that Windows was based on the Macintosh. This also implies that Windows was partially developed with tools provided by Apple. This might explain certain similarities.

[316] "Apple was planning to bring out its version of MacBASIC. Gates demanded that Sculley cancel the project and sign over to Microsoft rights to the MacBASIC name. As a lever, Gates told Sculley he would not renegotiate the license for Apple to use Microsoft’s BASIC on the best-selling Apple II. At the time, sales for the Macintosh were down to nothing and the Apple II was the company’s bread and butter product."

Mn: Strong-arm tactics. The next page goes on to suggest that the cancelled MacBASIC project created a lot of disgust within the Apple developer community.

[317] "Bill Atkinson, one of the company’s top software developers, said of Gates: ‘He insisted that Apple withdraw what was an exceptional product. He held the gun to our head.’"

Mn: Better way of describing how competitors view Microsoft.

[320] "When its stock was traded publicly for the first time in December of 1980, Apple’s value was estimated at $1.8 billion, which was more than Ford Motor Company."

Mn: Statistical information that might be useful in an introduction to Microsoft.

[327] "Microsoft’s International Division accounted for a whopping thirty-four percent of total revenues as of June 30, 1985. Of that, fully twelve percent came from Japan."

Mn: This is significant if the numbers are similar today because a number of countries have expressed concerns that Microsoft may have implanted backdoors that would enable the United States to have access to secret documents. Countries like Japan have shown great interest in other operating systems recently. For example: There are more books written in Japanese about the FreeBSD operating system than there are in English. (Reflecting a greater adoption of "free" operating systems by non-U.S. countries.)

[330] "No one in American history, from the great industrial barons and financiers of the nineteenth century to the modern day corporate raiders, had ever made so much money at such a young age."

Mn: Might be useful in an introduction. Refers to Bill Gates, who at 31 became a billionaire.

[342] Tim Paterson, creator of 86-QDOS, was rehired by Microsoft and remained with the company apparently to the date Hard Drive was published, 1992.

[344] "When OS/2 was announced publicly in April of 1987, both Microsoft and IBM predicted it would become the operating system of the 1990s for personal computers. Instead OS/2 turned out to be a huge flop."

Mn: IBM demonstrated OS/2 for a user group that I belonged to not long after. It was clear from the demonstration that the computer hardware requirements were out of the range of what most of the user groups members had at home. Page 348 makes it clear that Gates wanted OS/2 to run on 386’s while IBM managers wanted it to run on 286’s. This apparently was a dividing point between the two companies. Apparently Ballmer wanted to scrap Windows for OS/2 but Gates wanted to keep both OS’ in development "just in case." IBM is cited as being slow to move, which implies that it was impeding progress. But considering that the majority of an 80+ user group didn’t have the resources to run a Microsoft/IBM released OS/2, IBM’s demand that OS/2 work on a 286 doesn’t seem unreasonable.

[351] "Microsoft’s development of Presentation Manager and OS/2 with IBM had been making the folks at Apple Computer very nervous."

Mn: IBM’s endorsement of a Microsoft GUI provided extra umph for Microsoft.

[352] "On March 17, 1988, Apple Computer, Microsoft’s longtime business ally and competitor, one of its industry brethren, filed an 11-page copyright suit in federal court in San Jose, accusing Microsoft of stealing visual display features of the Macintosh computer in the latest version of Windows."

Mn: Strange that this was not filed earlier when Microsoft first came out with Windows (1985). It may have been that Apple didn’t consider Microsoft a threat until IBM endorsed Presentation Manager (part of Windows).

[355] "Apple said Microsoft threatened to stop work on vital applications for the Macintosh. Sculley, Apple’s leader, had said pretty much the same thing in his book Odyssey, which was published shortly before the Apple lawsuit."

[356] "The real target of Apple’s copyright lawsuit against Microsoft was actually OS/2."

[356-7] "OS/2 did not catch on for several reasons. At $325 a copy, it was more than twice as expensive as DOS. In order to use the new operating system, some PC owners had to spend $2,000 or more to update their existing hardware. For big corporate customers, this meant millions of dollars."

[358] "When Gates read some of the comments about the demise of Windows in the press…he was furious. Gates now flip-flopped and did just the opposite of what Microsoft had promised in the press release. Instead of backing off Windows, he aggressively pushed ahead with version three, shifting even more programmers off the OS/2 project and further angering IBM."

[359] "By the end of 1989, OS/2 accounted for less than one percent of all operating systems sold worldwide. DOS, meanwhile, had sixty-six percent of the market. And Windows 3.0 was designed to run on top of DOS, not OS/2."

[367] "Lotus had invested heavily in developing applications to run on OS/2, as had many others in the industry. These companies would later complain they were hoodwinked by Microsoft into staying with OS/2 long after Microsoft had secretly decided to give up on the new operating system and concentrate on Windows. According to them, this gave Microsoft a huge advantage when Windows 3.0 was released, a charge Gates would strongly deny."

[369] "Microsoft had been successful, Gates felt, because of the caliber of people it hired."

[372] "At the end of January 1991, the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft was abandoning OS/2 entirely. It would be three more months before Microsoft admitted as much. The divorce was final."

[373] "Microsoft issued its own brief statement the next morning. The company admitted it was under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, and it was cooperating fully."

Mn: March 12, 1991 would have been the date Microsoft made the announcement. One of the underwriters had announced the investigation a day earlier. (Competitors complained about Microsoft’s flip-flop between OS/2 and Windows)

[381] "Some years ago, T-Maker came out with a new, faster version of its word processing program at a discounted price. When Gates learned of this, he priced Microsoft Word to undercut Roizen’s product. Microsoft had many times the revenue of T-Maker, but no piece of business was too small for Gates."

[382] "Around 1989, Gates asked Adobe for the right to include those programs in Microsoft’s operating software, arguing that a linkup might vastly expand Adobe’s markets. But Gates did not offer any royalty money, and Warnock refused. Gates then declared war on Adobe. He announced an alliance with Apple, Adobe’s largest customer, to produce its own font software. Adobe’s stock subsequently collapsed, plunging more than thirty percent."

Mn: Apparently Adobe’s Type Manager, not clear by the text which just says Adobe’s software that controls the shape and size of type. (Type 1 fonts vs. Microsoft True Type technology).

[385] "’One of my friends referred to them as the Hitler Youth.’"

Mn: 3Com’s Metcalfe speaking about Microsoft programmers.

[387] "3Com, gambling that LAN Manager sales would soar, agreed to pay Microsoft a minimum monthly royalty payment, no matter how many products were sold. When the market didn’t develop, 3Com found itself paying Microsoft for thousands of unsold copies."

Mn: Seems like business stupidity rather than any wrong doing by Microsoft. It could be argued that Microsoft deceived 3Com because it was secretly backing Windows instead of OS/2, which LAN Manager was based on. To me it seems dumb to promise a minimum royalty without the sales to back the royalty. It’s like getting a credit card without reading the terms of the agreement.

[390] "Microsoft has become notorious in the industry not just for capitalizing on the technical advances of others, but, as some claim, for predatory pilfering. They complain that Microsoft repeatedly approaches small companies developing new products, ostensibly to talk about a partnership. After Microsoft is given a glimpse of how the software works, it suddenly loses interest in the deal—only to announce later that it has been working on surprisingly similar, but competing software."

Mn: followed on the next page by an example from Micrographx which seems to support the quote above. The company characterized their partnership with Microsoft as "date rape." It is followed by another company’s complaint against Microsoft. (less popular)

[394] "Microsoft’s Ballmer dismissed complaints that Microsoft has taken advantage of software companies. ‘Number one, we’ve never stolen anything from anybody,’ he said in a PC Week story. ‘But do we, like every other smart company, look at the works of others and try to get smarter by understanding what our competitors do? That we do.’"

Mn: First, even if Microsoft did not steal Apple technology, Gates admits to being influenced by Xerox’s GUI. There was no agreement between Microsoft and Xerox, so saying that they never stole anything from anybody is a lie. Second, Microsoft is admitting that they do try to defeat competitors by looking at what competing companies do. (They just do it by forming partnerships with them then dissolving the partnership once they get what they want.)

[395] Another example of Microsoft double crossing a company.

[397] Wordperfect cited as being one of the main complainants against Microsoft in the FTC 1991 investigation of Microsoft.

[397] "At the heart of the FTC probe is not Microsoft’s aggressive style or the way it does business, but whether or not Microsoft’s dominant position has chilled competition and thus hurt consumers."

[398] "In 1991, Microsoft controlled about a quarter of the applications market. Although application products accounted for fifty-one percent of Microsoft’s revenues in 1991, the bulk of the company’s profits come from the systems side. Microsoft does not come close to dominating the Big Three of applications—word processing, databases, and spreadsheets. Wordperfect is far ahead of Microsoft Word, Lotus 1-2-3 is still ahead of Excel, and Microsoft has nothing to compete against Ashton-Tate’s dBASE."

Mn: I believe Microsoft now dominates all three markets, and applications makes up a much larger source of revenue than it did when this statement was made.

[399] "In theory, Microsoft keeps the playing field level by segmenting the operating systems division and the applications division. Information is not suppose to flow freely between them. This imaginary partition is called the ‘Chinese Wall.’"

[399] "One senior application programmer at Microsoft, who has been with the company since the early 1980s, said the Chinese Wall is a creation of the media, not Microsoft. It doesn’t exist."

Mn: In other words, information between Microsoft’s OS department can flow directly into its applications department. This means Microsoft’s applications developers get a head start developing applications before any competitors.

[400] "’People are scared of Microsoft because they are so persistent. They have executed better than any other company. Others don’t feel they are capable of competing with Microsoft. It’s a lack of self-confidence. Every other company has screwed up. Does Microsoft have an unfair advantage that results in inferior products in the industry? That’s the myth. That’s what all the competitors want you to believe…Microsoft has made it harder to compete because it’s constantly addressing problems.’"

Mn: Stewart Alsop, senior Microsoft manager.

[408] Borland acquired Ashton-Tate becoming software company number three behind Lotus and Microsoft.

This is the last of the details I highlighted when reading Hard Drive. Much of my notes are just initial reactions to the text. I’m going to take what I’ve extracted and run it through Burke’s Dramatic Pentad.

charm-at-linuxmail.org, Charles McColm