Haiku: BeOS Reborn

[Odd]

Derek Broughton wrote:
> Odd wrote:
> 
>> Derek Broughton wrote:
>>> Odd wrote:
>>>
>>>> Michael Haney wrote:
>>>>> IBM just couldn't compete with
>>>>> Micro$oft's marketing department
>>>> Not only that, they couldn't compete with themselves. Back then, IBM
>>>> was divided in several units that competed internally. This meant that
>>>> IBM's own PC unit used Windows instead of OS/2. Talk about shooting
>>>> themselves in the foot.
>>> To be fair to IBM, that wasn't IBM's fault.  That was the US Department
>>> of Justice and anti-trust legislation, back when the DoJ actually had
>>> teeth and didn't just do big-businesses bidding.
>> That may be. But I still don't see why they couldn't use OS/2 on
>> the PCs they sold. It's not like they didn't have sufficient competition
>> in Windows.
> 
> They _could_ have used it - but they had to be able to justify it.  One IBM 
> unit would have to pay _retail_ for the OS produced by a different unit.

Sure. But that is easily solved. Just set the retail price low enough
for everybody.

> Given that MS was (and still is) encouraging everybody to install their OS 
> for far less than retail, and IBM would have been in violation of court 
> orders to offer a rebate to their own divisions, it was impossible for IBM 
> to compete in their own shop!

Not if they did what I said above. But I suspect they didn't.

-- 
Odd