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Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!Eric_Shockwave-Rider_Larson
From: Eric_Shockwave-Rider_Larson@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: The Lawsuit, Standardization, and Whiny DOS Users...
Message-ID: <5507@cup.portal.com>
Date: 16 May 88 22:56:24 GMT
References: <8685@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> <5823@well.UUCP> <10600@steinmetz.ge.com> <5836@well.UUCP> <1252@uokmax.UUCP> <5884@well.UUCP> <5167@cup.portal.com> <488@bnlux0.bnl.gov>
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>Am I missing some smiley faces here, or is this the most tortured logic
>ever seen.  Clearly IBM is not going to do anything that will directly
>hurt themselves, but by licensing the PS/2 Technology, they have created
>a mainstream computer architecture that will not only provide clone
>manufacturers with a living, but keep IBM in some pin money for the
>forseeable future.  The fact is, if IBM didn't license the PS/2 stuff,

Actually, nodody has a formal, completed agrrement with IBM jsut yet
for the PS/2 stuff, but it is true it may eventually come.

And if I'm engaging in tortured logic, I am apparently not the only
one. For example, you may want to read the column by Mr. Zachman in the
May 16 1988 Infoworld, in which he states:

Anybody who doubts that IBM means business about using "intellectual
property rights" to aggresively eliminate or cripple competitors...
and cites an aggressive campaign to hire intellectual property rights
lawyers.

Later in the same column:

IBM is rolling out its legal guns to force us back to the semimonopoly,
proprietary world of the fading era of traditional mainframe and
minicomputer systems.

Watch for an array of IBM products with proprietary twists covered by
copyrights, patents and trade secrets. The MCA...is only the opening
skirmish.

And so on...

The summary paragraph...

The bottom line is that users who commit to buying PS/2 MCA machines and
OS/2 Extended Edition are walking back into the proprietary corral of
Rancho IBM. They shouldn't be surprised to find themselves branded and
processed into hamburger to help feed IBM's $50-plus billion appetite
for semi-monopoly revenue.

In the same issue of Infoworld there is an Apple ad touting one of the
advantages of the Mac II being that it has a bus with fully disclosed
specifications.

:-)  :-)  :-)   (I happen to own both MS-DOS and Apple Macintosh Computers)