Bill Gates retires, but how it could have been so different..
While all the news has focused on the recent retirement of Bill Gates from Microsoft, we would like to remind readers of how another man, Gary Kildall, in theory missed out on being what Bill Gates is today, all because he was flying his private plane when IBM came calling for an operating system based on his CP/M system; Bill Gates subsequently took the opportunity and developed an OS that is thought to have been based on Kildall's original. Here, The Chilli provides a summary of how others can benefit from the hindsight of his experience and what could have changed Kildall’s own fortunes.
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High-tech startups can learn a lot from the experience of Gary Kildall, creator of CP/M, the first PC operating system, and how he missed the opportunity to be the richest man in the world. The book “They Made America”, by Harold Evans tells Kildall’s story.
Kildall’s story is one of an inventor-cum-entrepreneur who could have been the richest man in the world but allowed someone else take that opportunity by not exploiting first product advantage. In the book by Evans, (see review) we learn how the creator of computing’s first major successful operating system – CP/M (control program for microcomputers), the precursor to Microsoft’s MS-DOS – missed his chance to be the one to drive the success of the IBM PC.
It is said that Gary Kildall tried once in the 1970s to offer Intel and other processor vendors the CP/M operating system he created, but they declined.
Then, in 1981 when IBM came calling on Kildall to seek an operating system for its new IBM-PC, Kildall was not available because he was out flying his private plane. Instead, his wife was there and refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement, meaning the talks couldn’t even progress. So IBM went instead to Seattle and struck a deal with Bill Gates, but without the operating system development expertise, Microsoft appointed Seattle Computer Products (SCP) to develop its system. Tim Paterson of SCP is said to have bought a manual for CP/M and based his QDOS (quick and dirty operating system) on it, developed within two months. Microsoft bought the rights to this system for $50,000 and MS-DOS evolved. The rest is history.
One could debate what might have happened if Kildall did in fact manage to get the opportunity to meet the IBM execs. However, from the point of view of a start-up’s management, there are important lessons to be learned from his experience.
The main one is that a management team in a small business needs to demonstrate confidence but not to the point where it can be perceived as arrogance. In the Kildall story, the partner’s refusal to sign a NDA or agree to negotiate on price was construed by IBM as being arrogant. But at the same time, it’s essential to for an entrepreneur to be ruthless and meet the demands of its customers by providing a total solution using whatever is available on the market. In the case of the operating system for the IBM PC, Microsoft demonstrated this characteristic by utilising a contractor to reach its desired goal to deliver to IBM.
Last of all, one of the most important aspects of a technology or IT business is to protect your intellectual property. In the case of QDOS, it was considered different enough from CP/M to be legal. So it is debatable as to what kind of protection would have supported Kildall had he decided to take legal action.
In an entrepreneur’s world, there are always make-or-break decisions that need to be made rapidly. Finding the right balance between acting quickly and acting sensibly or cautiously is often only possible with the benefit of hindsight, but being decisive is probably the most important.
This article is based on one published by The Chilli in October 2004. Gary Kildall died in July 1994 at the age of 52.
Comments on this story? Send an email to the editor: address - editor [@] thechilli.com
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© Chilli Publishing Ltd 2008 |
10 JUL 2008 |
