IBM ThinkPad T42 Schematic Circuit Diagram
IBM ThinkPad T42 Schematic Circuit Diagram
Who Controls PC Software?
Microsoft has effectively used its control of the PC Operating System (OS) as purpose to also control other types of PC software, such as utilities, drivers, and applications. For example, many utility programs offered by independent companies, such as disk compression, disk caching, disk encryption, file defragmentation, firewalls, file structure repair, and even simple applications such as calculator and notepad applications, are now bounded in Windows. Microsoft bundles more extensive applications, such as word processors, web browsers, and media players, ensuring an automatic installed base for these applications much to the dismay of companies who produce competing versions. Microsoft also controls the OS to integrate its own networking software and applications more smoothly into the OS than others. That’s why it dominates most of the PC software universe from OSs to networking software to utilities, from word processors to database programs to spreadsheets and presentation programs.
In the early days of the PC, IBM hired Microsoft to provide most of the core software for the PC. IBM developed the hardware design or architecture, programmed the basic input/output system (BIOS), and hired Microsoft to develop or improved the disk operating system (DOS) as well as some or other programs and utilities for the PC. In what was later viewed as probably the most costly business mistake in history, IBM failed to secure or protect exclusive rights to the DOS it had contracted from Microsoft, either by purchasing it outright or by an exclusive license agreement. Instead, IBM licensed it not exclusively, which later allowed Microsoft to sell the same MS-DOS code it developed for IBM to any other company that was interested. Before PC cloners such as Compaq were interested in licensing this OS code, and suddenly consumers could purchase the same basic MS-DOS OS with several different company names on the box. In retreat, that single contractual error made Microsoft the dominant software company it is today and later caused IBM to lose control of the very PC standard it had created.
