Well, MS has had more than one hit. BASIC, Windows, and Office. That’s three.
I don’t see BASIC (or even DOS) as one of their “hits.” It was an accident of history that both were available on the PC when it took off. Windows and Office count, but so do Google’s various ways to get people to come to their site and see their ads — good ways, like best-of-breed search and excellent spam-filtering, rather than evil ones like making legal and contractual threats against computer vendors that want to offer a competing product (OS/2, Linux, etcetera) instead of Windows, or making their own “free” web-mail system so that they can pimp the information about whoever signs up to spammers.
In the battle between Microsoft and Google, I’m rooting for Google.
Yes, I’m rooting for google too over Microsoft. Just pointing out that numerically speaking, Microsoft is a two or three hit wonder. 😉
Actually, when I thought “BASIC hit”, I thought their dominance in that market that began with the first hobbiest 8 bit micro, the Altair. Interestingly enough, it was also the first vaporware. In order to have an exclusive contract with Altair, they claimed they had a BASIC interpreter ready – before they even had one line of code. Luckily Gates had Paul Allen to make that a reality, or his gamble wouldn’t have paid off and he probably just would have been sued instead of becoming the dominant source of BASIC for 8 bit micros, which got his foot in the door with IBM in the first place.
Well, MS has had more than one hit. BASIC, Windows, and Office. That’s three.
I don’t see BASIC (or even DOS) as one of their “hits.” It was an accident of history that both were available on the PC when it took off. Windows and Office count, but so do Google’s various ways to get people to come to their site and see their ads — good ways, like best-of-breed search and excellent spam-filtering, rather than evil ones like making legal and contractual threats against computer vendors that want to offer a competing product (OS/2, Linux, etcetera) instead of Windows, or making their own “free” web-mail system so that they can pimp the information about whoever signs up to spammers.
In the battle between Microsoft and Google, I’m rooting for Google.
Yes, I’m rooting for google too over Microsoft. Just pointing out that numerically speaking, Microsoft is a two or three hit wonder. 😉
Actually, when I thought “BASIC hit”, I thought their dominance in that market that began with the first hobbiest 8 bit micro, the Altair. Interestingly enough, it was also the first vaporware. In order to have an exclusive contract with Altair, they claimed they had a BASIC interpreter ready – before they even had one line of code. Luckily Gates had Paul Allen to make that a reality, or his gamble wouldn’t have paid off and he probably just would have been sued instead of becoming the dominant source of BASIC for 8 bit micros, which got his foot in the door with IBM in the first place.