Microsoft Never Invented Nothing!

July 11, 2008

I admire Bill Gates - as a philanthropist, CEO, genuinely nice human being. As a computer genius - No. Look at some of the breakthroughs in computing :

* CP/M Operating System - Digital Research - 1973
* QDOS Operating System - Seattle Computer Products - 1980
* PostScript Printing Language - Adobe Systems - 1982
* Apple Lisa (GUI / Mouse) - Apple 1983
* Apple Macintosh (Windowing Operating System) - Apple 1984
* HTML hypertext markup language - Physicists at CERN - 1991
* PDF Document Format - Adobe - 1993
* Netscape Web Browser - Netscape - 1994
* RealPlayer Streaming Media Player - RealNetworks - 1995
* Apple IPOD - Apple - 2001

Every single one of these technologies EVENTUALLY made its way into Microsoft products, often killing off the original inventing company.

CP/M was the original PC operating system. QDOS was a rewrite of it by another company a few years later. Microsoft bought the rights to sell QDOS for about $75,000, and made a fortune selling it to IBM. They can't even claim to have invented DOS!

Microsoft is never first with anything, never best at anything, but aways makes the most money on everything.

Microsoft is a great company for its share holders, and that what capitalism is all about. My only complaint is when I hear how "grateful" people are to Microsoft for "empowering" them with all of their "wonderful products and technologies". On the contrary, in my opinion Microsoft has slowed down the flow of innovation getting into peoples hands because they were able to create a virtual monopoly with an inferior product, hence the world has to end up waiting for each new technology to finally make its way into Microsoft products to be able to use them - a 2 or 3 year delay on average.

-- Greg