Licensing Compaq DOS back to Microsoft was a mistake. It gave Microsoft’s OS incumbency. The PC industry has been suffering from that decision ever since.

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flomo 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Hindsight view. At the time Microsoft was the "open" little guy fighting the big evil monopolist IBM. The MS monopoly wasn't so total, and Linux servers spread everywhere. Extremely unlikely that would have happened had Microchannel dreams come true, as IBM intended to limit PCs to the low-end.

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passwordhelpme 6 days ago | parent [-]

Linux servers in the 80s?

	▲	3 days ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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canucker2016 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You would have relegated Dell and Gateway 2000 to second tier-PC clone maker along with all the other PC clone makers, below Compaq, since their OEM version of MS-DOS wouldn't get the Compaq tweaks necessary to be 100% IBM PC compatible (unless Microsoft or these non-Compaq OEMs duplicated Compaq's compatibility work).

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ryao 6 days ago | parent [-]

They could have licensed Compaq’s version.

By the way, the Gateway 2000 was a machine by Gateway, not a vendor.

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canucker2016 6 days ago | parent [-]

No.

Gateway 2000 was the actual name of the company at that time.

They dropped the 2000 close to the year 2000. I assume it wouldn't look good for a forward-looking tech company to be named for a year in the past.

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_2000

	▲	ryao 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Well, that explains why I had thought it was a very popular model. :/