
Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2 (2013) - smacktoward
https://arstechnica.com/business/2013/11/half-an-operating-system-the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-os2/
======
Nomentatus
IBM was under considerable antitrust pressure at that time. Retaining all OS
rights posed a substantial legal risk to their real business (see the Feds vs
the Unix OS, forcing AT&T not to greedily enforce their rights to that OS) so
IBM decided not to try to corner a second market, and really get Federal heat.
Bill Gates wasn't smarter than IBM, he was smarter than his competitors, and
undercut their price: he knew that Basic, etc would pay the bills for some
time, so he could settle for a smaller price than others would have charged,
while he waited for a bigger future payoff. His mom was also very well
connected with IBM.

