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OEMs had no choice, it was either that deal or they wouldn't be able to sell Microsoft OS licenses at all - this was something Microsoft did since the DOS days

OEMs had no choice, it was either that deal or they wouldn't be able to sell Microsoft OS licenses at all - this was something Microsoft did since the DOS days and they took advantage of their position as the #1 OS provider for IBM PC and the clones. A PC that cannot run DOS and later Windows would be worthless.

pjmlp 7y ago
Even small shops on Mafia controlled neighborhoods have a choice. My first PC was bought with DR-DOS 5.0 on it, and at high school we were using a mix of MS-DOS 3.3 and PC-DOS. Plus the market for Atari and Amiga was still kind of strong, before the respective companies started going astray with their business decisions. And to make it actual, most Web devs have a choice, yet they decide to put Google in power with their Chrome-only focus in name of convenience.
- badsectoracula 7y ago
  I think you should read on MS-DOS's per-processor licensing which was the cheapest one: it wasn't technically the only available scheme and didn't technically forbid other OSes, it was just the cheapest by far option, especially for larger PC manufacturers who were the ones that would popularize the OS (some small corner shop using DR-DOS instead of MS-DOS wouldn't make a difference in the grand scheme of things).
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Lets not blame Microsoft alone for OEMs having the easiest route out, it takes two to dance. Poor little OEMs, specially the ones that were installing pirate copies, so they weren't bound to any Microsoft requirement to start with. Just like they do nowadays with Android updates, producing new handsets with 2 - 3 versions behind, to avoid new development costs, without any kind of updates afterwards, regardless of Treble compliance.
    - badsectoracula 7y ago
      Vendors were the least affected by all this and they just did whatever was most profitable for them. Remember that the original message i wrote above wasn't about vendors but about by the time Windows XP came out it was already riding a huge popularity wave that began back in the DOS days. Whatever vendors took out of it, this sort of tactics made DOS hugely popular.
      - pjmlp 7y ago
        Vendors were doing what people asked them to put into their custom built PCs, mostly pirate software, while maximizing profits.

pjmlp 7y ago

Even small shops on Mafia controlled neighborhoods have a choice. My first PC was bought with DR-DOS 5.0 on it, and at high school we were using a mix of MS-DOS 3.3 and PC-DOS. Plus the market for Atari and Amiga was still kind of strong, before the respective companies started going astray with their business decisions. And to make it actual, most Web devs have a choice, yet they decide to put Google in power with their Chrome-only focus in name of convenience.

badsectoracula 7y ago
I think you should read on MS-DOS's per-processor licensing which was the cheapest one: it wasn't technically the only available scheme and didn't technically forbid other OSes, it was just the cheapest by far option, especially for larger PC manufacturers who were the ones that would popularize the OS (some small corner shop using DR-DOS instead of MS-DOS wouldn't make a difference in the grand scheme of things).
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Lets not blame Microsoft alone for OEMs having the easiest route out, it takes two to dance. Poor little OEMs, specially the ones that were installing pirate copies, so they weren't bound to any Microsoft requirement to start with. Just like they do nowadays with Android updates, producing new handsets with 2 - 3 versions behind, to avoid new development costs, without any kind of updates afterwards, regardless of Treble compliance.
  - badsectoracula 7y ago
    Vendors were the least affected by all this and they just did whatever was most profitable for them. Remember that the original message i wrote above wasn't about vendors but about by the time Windows XP came out it was already riding a huge popularity wave that began back in the DOS days. Whatever vendors took out of it, this sort of tactics made DOS hugely popular.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Vendors were doing what people asked them to put into their custom built PCs, mostly pirate software, while maximizing profits.