"Ralph Mowery" wrote in message
k.net...
In article ,
says...

The early success that put them in a near monopoly position, was not
about buying out competition, but by being
very lucky to have been chosen by IBM to provide the OS for their
first PC. That's how MSFT owned the business PC market. IBM and
all the IBM clones ran MSFT OS and had no choice. It was the power of
the IBM brand, setting a standard that really put them where they
are today. Later they used that success to expand into other areas,
eg applications, internet, etc, a lot of that through acquisitions.

That is only partof the story.

Yes.

GAtes and a company called something
like Digital Research were in competition.

Yes.

Gates out smarted DR. He asked IBM to put out both and let the
public choose. DR sold the system for about $ 150 and MS for $
49. People being what they are bought mostly the $ 49 version.

That mangles the real story. DR, and yes you got the name right,
didn't both to show up when IBM asked them what they had to
offer for the PC. Gates did and IBM chose what he had to be
shipped for the PC and that's what most buyers got by default.
And they didn't pay for it explicitly in the sense that it was an
option with the DR product when buying the PC from IBM.

That gave MS a big start money wise.

The fact that it was what was shipped with the PC certainly was.

There was a couple of other operating systems out, but
they never made a go of it. I am thinking maybe DR. DOS

MS sort of stole the windows design

Nope.

and the mouse from other companies.

Nothing was stolen about the mouse.