Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:15755 comp.sys.ibm.pc:15338 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> Organization: The Portal System (TM) Lines: 27 XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.4308 >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".