Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5280130" data-attributes="member: 80487">Long story short:Microsoft benefited from IBM's having come (late) to the PC market with(A) the value of its brand name and(B) a box of mostly off-the-shelf components and a proprietary but quickly emulated BIOS.Phoenix BIOS and others allowed competitors to make machines that could beat IBM on price, performance, even &quot;IBM compatibility&quot; (which the PCjr notably lacked). IBM itself shifted to other aspects of the business. It could make money selling licenses to features that it had actually patented, which made encouraging &quot;clones&quot; more profitable than competing.Thus, an &quot;industry standard&quot; architecture emerged. Microsoft had been providing custom versions of its DOS to different hardware OEMs, not just IBM-DOS. With that installed base, it built up an advantage over rival operating systems for the same platforms.Commodore, Apple, Atari and Sinclair (and others) meanwhile, were focused on their integrated packages of custom chips and other hardware with proprietary OS. Through the 1980s, their lead in capabilities gradually lost ground to the &quot;IBM-compatibles&quot;.&nbsp; Even Microsoft's own MSX initiative -- mustering an alliance of Japanese firms -- failed to seize sustainable market share.Eventually, there was just not enough&nbsp; money to make on software for the less common platforms versus turning out more for the &quot;ISA&quot; and MS-DOS (later Windows). More programs -- especially more new games, perhaps ironic considering IBM's and Microsoft's initial positions on graphics, sound and so on -- helped sell more machines.It is a self-reinforcing cycle that keeps going around today.Note that it was basically IBM's loss that was the big win for the platform's dominance. Along with Commodore's savage price war, it helped make the hardware box a &quot;commodity&quot; product -- except for Apple, which was left with the smaller market for fine &quot;fit and finish&quot;.WotC may have come to be&nbsp; worried that the &quot;D20 System&quot; SRD and licenses would do much the same to it and the value of its &quot;D&amp;D&quot; brand. Its current setup does not appear to encourage much jumping aboard by other parties. The level of &quot;dominance&quot; d20 System achieved in the past decade might not be repeated by D&amp;D in the next, because (perhaps) that would be more in the interests of other companies but less in WotC's.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 5280130, member: 80487"] Long story short: Microsoft benefited from IBM's having come (late) to the PC market with (A) the value of its brand name and (B) a box of mostly off-the-shelf components and a proprietary but quickly emulated BIOS. Phoenix BIOS and others allowed competitors to make machines that could beat IBM on price, performance, even "IBM compatibility" (which the PCjr notably lacked). IBM itself shifted to other aspects of the business. It could make money selling licenses to features that it had actually patented, which made encouraging "clones" more profitable than competing. Thus, an "industry standard" architecture emerged. Microsoft had been providing custom versions of its DOS to different hardware OEMs, not just IBM-DOS. With that installed base, it built up an advantage over rival operating systems for the same platforms. Commodore, Apple, Atari and Sinclair (and others) meanwhile, were focused on their integrated packages of custom chips and other hardware with proprietary OS. Through the 1980s, their lead in capabilities gradually lost ground to the "IBM-compatibles". Even Microsoft's own MSX initiative -- mustering an alliance of Japanese firms -- failed to seize sustainable market share. Eventually, there was just not enough money to make on software for the less common platforms versus turning out more for the "ISA" and MS-DOS (later Windows). More programs -- especially more new games, perhaps ironic considering IBM's and Microsoft's initial positions on graphics, sound and so on -- helped sell more machines. It is a self-reinforcing cycle that keeps going around today. Note that it was basically IBM's loss that was the big win for the platform's dominance. Along with Commodore's savage price war, it helped make the hardware box a "commodity" product -- except for Apple, which was left with the smaller market for fine "fit and finish". WotC may have come to be worried that the "D20 System" SRD and licenses would do much the same to it and the value of its "D&D" brand. Its current setup does not appear to encourage much jumping aboard by other parties. The level of "dominance" d20 System achieved in the past decade might not be repeated by D&D in the next, because (perhaps) that would be more in the interests of other companies but less in WotC's. [/QUOTE]

Verification