🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3vk98m$5u7@cdn_mail.telecom.com.au>,
Tim Barham <tbarham@vcrpmap.telecom.com.au> wrote:
>In article <3v58cd$rd9@wn1.sci.kun.nl>,
>frankwij@sci.kun.nl (Frank Wijnans) wrote:
>> The story goes that Microschoft (Dutch for Microbastard, pronounce as 
>> Microsgoft) demaded that everybody who build a PC payed Microschoft because
>> it would run M$-Dos anyway.

>I guess the story was wrong, then, eh?

The fact is that Microsoft offered cheaper per-copy prices for MS-DOS and
Windows to those hardware vendors that would agree to pay per-unit-shipped,
even if a given unit did not have said products loaded.   Refusing this
offer was likely economic suicide given the competition in the hardware
market.  Under this licensing scheme, a system preloaded with anything else
would cost more since the alternative's costs were added to the per-unit
costs for MS-DOS and Windows.  Microsoft was recently forced to cease this
practice under threat of legal action by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The story was not wrong, just simplified.
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