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Path: utzoo!mnetor!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: <5167@cup.portal.com>
Date: 7 May 88 01:08:44 GMT
References: <8685@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> <5823@well.UUCP> <10600@steinmetz.ge.com> <5836@well.UUCP> <1252@uokmax.UUCP> <5884@well.UUCP>
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>IBM offers *licenses* for its PS/2 patents, and several companies such
>as Tandy will be producing PS/2 compatibles using these licenses.
>Try and get a license from Apple to manufacture Mac clones ...
-- 
>Harry Henderson (freelance technical editor/writer).

Rather sneaky of IBM, wouldn't you say? If they didn't offer the
license, there would be a very good chance that the PC market
would fragment around two standards, and IBM would lose control
of PC technology. But with this license, they will be able to maintain
control of the technology, and make a profit on sales of their competitors'
products besides. It's a brilliant move toward closing PC architecture,
and bringing clone vendors to their knees.

First we had open hardware technology. Now we have IBM with a stranglehold
on the hardware design, a shortage of 386 chips, (which, rather interestingly,
IBM owns mask rights to, and has production ramping up). What do think
might be next? Special versions of OS/2 that run only on IBM's? Hardware
technology improving on MCA that they DON'T license? IBM becoming sole
manufacturer of a "fixed" 386, or 486? IBM admits internally that the
non-proprietary design of the original PC's was a big mistake for them, and
are gradually moving toward taking back control.

If the clone vendors were smart, they wouldn't have anything to do with this.

Remember, IBM is the company that said "To us, open architecture means
third party comapnies can write software that will run on our machines".