> 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?....

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     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?....

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