In 2001, as the government’s second anti-trust suit is drawing to a close, we are left to wonder just what exactly is Microsoft [MS]. Is it the power hungry monopoly bent on beating or buying its competition; or, is it a company that has grown rich and fruitful because its products and marketing strategy are heads and shoulders above everyone else’s. I intend to show that this company began as the latter, but quickly grew into the former.In 1975 childhood friends, Paul Allen and Bill Gates, founded Microsoft (Laver). Based out of Redmond, Washington, their product was mainly operating systems software [OSS] for computers. One year later in 1976, Gates wrote a scathing open letter to computer hobbyists for “stealing” his software. These hackers, as they called themselves, had always traded software amongst themselves; programs were traded especially when it was written in free languages, as was Microsoft’s. Microsoft was gaining momentum and many people saw the money they were making. Soon, there were many companies selling their software through retail outlets, rather than just a few geeks trade amongst themselves.1980 rolled in with a big new deal in the technology sector. IBM, the hardware super-power, chose Microsoft’s operating system software (MS-DOS) and Intel’s microprocessors for the new “personal computers” (pc) that it was bringing to market (Akemann). The deal between Microsoft and IBM was so lopsided that it left economists scratching their heads until this very day. To put it simply, any company could clone an IBM pc, but it had to pay royalties to “Big Blue” (IBM); and IBM and the other companies had to pay royalties to Microsoft. MS-DOS profitability was broadened by allowing it to be licensed and cloned in much the same way that the pc was.After the release of Windows (versions 3.0 and 3.1) in the early 1990’s, Microsoft’s popularity was soar...
