The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 14 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Ballmer: Microsoft's first antitrust inquiry came from FTC over IBM collusion
“This was our first antitrust problem. I don't know if you guys know this, is the FTC at the time thought we and IBM were working to divide the market because we had done some positioning. What's windows good for? What's always too good for? We and IBM had done…”
Ballmer: Microsoft initially charged fixed fees before switching to per-unit licensing
“We didn't charge for the operating system on an ongoing basis. We charged for it one time. If you got a new version, we charged another time and we did the same thing for basic and everything else because At the time, you could think we were like a substitute …”
Microsoft retained full non-exclusive licensing rights to DOS from IBM
“Microsoft retained the rights To own DOS and to own their languages and license it and them to anyone else they wanted at any price on any terms.”
Microsoft surpassed IBM in market capitalization in January 1993
“January, 93, the crowning moment, it happens, Microsoft passes IBM in market cap”
IBM paid Microsoft a $430,000 fixed fee for DOS with no royalties
“IBM paid Microsoft 75,000 dollars for testing and consultation. 45,000 dollars for DOS. 45. And 310,000 dollars for an array of sixteen-bit language interpreters and compilers. So all told, bundled together, that is 430,000 dollars fixed that IBM paid Microsof…”
Morris Chang raised Texas Instruments' IBM chip yields to 20% in four months
“After about four months, he gets the yields at the TI plant up to 20%. So twice as good as the first party line at IBM.”
Compaq reached $111 million in revenue in its first year
“They start the company in 1982, and within the first year, they do a hundred and eleven million dollars of revenue of selling IBM PC clone hardware.”
IBM unbundled hardware and software in 1968 amid antitrust scrutiny
“But an important thing that was also happening this year, in 1968, was that IBM was undergoing some antitrust scrutiny over that huge bundle that I just told you about. I mean, doesn't it smell like antitrust? They do everything from the hardware to the softwa…”
DEC priced the PDP-1 at $120,000, far below IBM mainframes
“So the first deck machine, when it comes out, the PDP one a few years before this time, it was priced at a 120,000 dollars. So like an order of magnitude, maybe two below a system that you would buy from IBM.”
IBM's market cap in 1980 was $34 billion
“Thirty four billion dollars. That was the most valuable company.”
IBM sold 500,000 PCs within two years of launch
“They sell 13,500 IBM PCs within the first couple months after they announce it. Over the next two years, they sell half a million of them.”
IBM mandated the Project Chess team to ship a PC within one year
“IBM leadership tells this team in Boca They have to ship the PC to customers within one year.”