"Just like by not paying for a car you can't go home from the store driving it."
Not quite the same thing IMHO. By not signing the contract and doing what Microsoft wanted, since it was the de-facto standard at the time, you were pretty much kissing your PC sales business goodbye..
Well, hold on... If we're talking about the late 1980s (which the author is), then I'm not sure we could call Windows a de facto standard. I agree with the other poster that Gates simply studied history to determine which sorts of contracts would provide Microsoft with the maximum leverage over time. Other OS vendors could have done the same thing; they simply lacked Gates' intelligence and foresight.
So because they charged what people were willing to pay for a popular product, they were cheating?
Look, anyone can make the offer MS made. If they price it low enough, they could get some takers. It was a smart move, because it meant that a dominant player would have growing market share among manufacturers who worked with them, but it would only work out if the product had traction -- otherwise, dealing with MS would just be paying Bill Gates to watch you fail.
Not quite the same thing IMHO. By not signing the contract and doing what Microsoft wanted, since it was the de-facto standard at the time, you were pretty much kissing your PC sales business goodbye..