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Replying To:
Gates and PC History (none / 0) (#5)
by Doc Robin on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 10:45:44 AM PDT

Sorry for the repeat - thought I was registered... Gates may have provided the OS - but the PC would be another toy were it not for Lotus 123... That's why business bought in - and in those days who else could afford to (except for a handful of - as we called them then - hackers with a few thousand $$ to spare)? So Estridge got IBM to get the PC out of the gate with IBM's Imprimatur - Gates providing the OS for that initial plunge (and every one thereafter). But if we had to use the other spreadsheet of the day (Visicalc), it would have remained "at the gate"... Gates quickly saw that light, but wasn't able to capitalize on it until he "bundled" (old IBM strategy that) his "Dirty Windows" with Apps that worked together (more or less). So Excel bumped Lotus 123, Word bumped WordPerfect, and PowerPoint bumped Freelance - all of them a few functional cards shy of a full deck. But Windows didn't like 123, WordPerfect, or Freelance - by design??? The rest as they say is history...



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