> On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 11:02:23 AM PDT, Bob Bridges > <robhbrid...@gmail.com> wrote: > Just to keep things complicated, if I sell X to company M,
IBM has the right to sell anything it owns even if its to Bill Gates. It's not hindsight to say IBM has a lot of software that simply exists. They sold software that wasn't as profitable as MVS but not a complete loss. They didn't see the potential of selling lots of small stuff (MS Windows & Office) and decided to concentrate on MVS. Microsoft net worth is now 100X IBM. Once IBM decided it was a mistake, they started investing into OS/2. How do you rate these businesses choices? On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 11:02:23 AM PDT, Bob Bridges <robhbrid...@gmail.com> wrote: Just to keep things complicated, if I sell X to company M, and company M makes a mint on it, it doesn't ~necessarily~ follow that it was a mistake for me to sell it. Could be that M was likely to make a mint on X and I was not. And after all, is IBM worse off because Microsoft is selling PCs to the world? Seems to me you could argue that the ubiquity of PCs is ~helping~ IBM mainframe sales. --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* I will frankly admit that I'm afraid of medical care. I trace this fear to my childhood, when, as far as I could tell, the medical profession's reaction to every physical problem I developed, including nearsightedness, was to give me a tetanus shot. -Dave Barry, 1996 */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Jon Perryman Sent: Monday, August 7, 2023 13:27 On the whole, I consider IBM excellent compared to how other companies but it's undeniable that they have made some bonehead choices. Was it a smart decision for IBM to sell the software that became Microsoft?.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN On Monday, August 7, 2023 at 11:02:23 AM PDT, Bob Bridges <robhbrid...@gmail.com> wrote: Just to keep things complicated, if I sell X to company M, and company M makes a mint on it, it doesn't ~necessarily~ follow that it was a mistake for me to sell it. Could be that M was likely to make a mint on X and I was not. And after all, is IBM worse off because Microsoft is selling PCs to the world? Seems to me you could argue that the ubiquity of PCs is ~helping~ IBM mainframe sales. --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* I will frankly admit that I'm afraid of medical care. I trace this fear to my childhood, when, as far as I could tell, the medical profession's reaction to every physical problem I developed, including nearsightedness, was to give me a tetanus shot. -Dave Barry, 1996 */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Jon Perryman Sent: Monday, August 7, 2023 13:27 On the whole, I consider IBM excellent compared to how other companies but it's undeniable that they have made some bonehead choices. Was it a smart decision for IBM to sell the software that became Microsoft?.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN