01.12.09
Microsoft: “Never Leave an Opening for Novell or IBM”
“The purpose of announcing early like this is to freeze the market at the OEM and ISV level. In this respect it is JUST like the original Windows announcement…
“One might worry that this will help Sun because we will just have vaporware, that people will stop buying 486 machines, that we will have endorsed RISC but not delivered… So, Scott, do you really think you can fight that avalanche?”
THIS MAY be very minor, but the following exhibit, Exhibit px07724 from Comes vs Microsoft [PDF], is about the mythical MS-DOS 7, which much like Windows 7, is intended to be released Real Soon Now™ (after Windows 95). Was it ever released? Well, either way, it was intended to keep Novell at bay. █
Appendix: Comes vs. Microsoft – exhibit px07724, as text
Depo. Ex. 965
Unknown
From: Richard Freedman
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 1994 9:31 PM
To: Personal Systems Group Marketing Team
Subject: FW: MS-DOS 7?
here is my standard answer on “where is ms-dos 7?”
the bottom line is that if customers want ms-dos 7, we’ll do it, and we’ll ship it a few months after chicago.
if we do an ms-dos 7, it will be chicago without the gui. but it would be a somewhat strange product, and we’re not sure who the market would be for it, chicago has complete backwards compatibility with ms-dos apps. it runs them faster and more reliably than windows 3.1, and even has a special mode for particularly Ill-behaved ms-dos apps. chicago has very modest hardware requirements – 4mb 386 is iL and e lot of functionality in chicago is in the gui, and taking out the gui will mean much less functionality and that is something most customers won’t like. chicago even has a C> that combines the best of CUI and GUl that ms-dos users will die for.
but if customers insist on ms-dos 7, we’ll build it. [never leave an opening for novell or ibm.] thanks.
From: Brent Ethington
To: Richard Freedman
Cc: Richard Barton
Subject: MS-DOS 7?
Date: Tuesday, April 05, 1994 5:09PM
Was asked about this in each of my Chicago overview talks at TechEd. I said that product packaging decisions had not been finalized, but never said that we were’nt doing one, nor did I say we were.
What’s the word on this? RichBa suggested you send a piece of mail to the PSG team clarifying what we should say when asked this question.
brent
MS-PCA 1182370
CONFIDENTIAL
HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
Page 2 MSC 00045171
Plaintiff’s Exhibit
7724
Comes V. Microsoft
Lyle Howard Seave said,
January 12, 2009 at 4:19 pm
hey Roy et al,
take a look at the top 10 list and check out who is their number one.
its an average article but their short analysis for #1 is right on the money.
http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/News/Dire-Predictions-Tech-Vendors-That-May-Not-Survive-2009/
Lyle Howard Seave said,
January 12, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Forgot to mention that this was based on a survey they did:
“In the Channel Insider 2009 Market Pulse Survey, we asked solution providers which vendors they thought would go out of business or be acquired in 2009. The results may shock you. Based on their perceptions and predictions, the following are the vendors that made the going list of those that won’t be here in 2010. “
Roy Schestowitz said,
January 12, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Thanks. These leagues (like brand value) are always corruptible in the sense that they can be bought, but at least this one is not based on gut feeling of some editor.