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Comment by dwmcqueen | Hacker News Reader

Actually, you didn't get it because Jean-Louis asked too much when Apple inquired.

The way I see it, the two are related- Microsoft stopped it from having much of a chance as an independent OS.. This stopped us from getting it outside of a major vendor like Apple acquiring it.

Apple saw this, so didn't want to pay as much as they might have if it were selling well on it's own.

So Apple ended up going with NeXT "instead of plan Be" as it were.

Yep. OEMs were not allowed to sell dual-boot systems if they wanted to keep buying cheap MS licenses. I think they lost that lawsuit, but it was long after BeOS closed up their commercial operations.

Didn't Be publicly offer up a free Be OS license to the first OEM willing to ship a duel boot system?

When there were no takers for a free way to have your hardware stand out from the pack, it was hard to imagine a reason for every single OEM in a very crowded field to back away that didn't involve antitrust shenanigans.

Now that you mention it, I recall this as well.

I love how everyone blames Microsoft for what was OEMs doing a race to the bottom.

OEMs had an option, yes they would had to pay more for licenses, but no one pointed them a gun, or did visits mafia style to forbid them to sell other systems.

Microsoft, the incumbent, offered OEMs cheaper Windows licenses as long as there was no dual boot, or a windows license was paid for every machine sold regardless of what it ran.

Under these terms, it was suicide for OEMs to offer anything except “only Windows”. I was actually working for another company whose software was killed by Microsoft by a similar “or else” threat from Microsoft at the time.

Microsoft was a bully doing (likely) illegal things, except the FTC wasn’t doing its job.

And what would have stopped OEMs to offer the same device with a different SKU with BeOS AND Windows for say x USD more?

(kind of like Dell does with their Linux lappies)

More SKUs cost more in manufacturing, QA; choice paralysis may drive away customers. All for a relatively niche offering that might piss off their big product. Little upside. It's even a bit surprising Dell sells Linux laptops, considering.

Lack of demand (for BeOS at an extra cost; or for Windows by people who wanted BeOS)

Also, some of the time Microsoft simply forbade dual booting as a condition for OEM licensing.

It'd be business suicide to charge more just so they could offer an obscure OS as an option; in my mind, this is the kind of clear anticompetitive situation it'd be good to use the law to avoid. Instead the DOJ went after MS for bundling a web browser. So dumb.

Microsoft was sued, and settled for $23M. https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240052523/BeOS-will-liv...

Hey, that’s neat, but too little too late!

Was it just a strategic misstep for Be to not sue at the time, when it would have mattered? Why did the DOJ care about MS bundling a web browser w/ its OS but not care about MS preventing OEMs from selling any other OS than Windows? The seems wildly, clearly more anticompetitive to me!

And why does no one care about this stuff anymore? Not only does iOS bundle a browser, you cannot install any other browser (you can install alternative UI frontends for webkit, but you can’t ship your own js/html etc engine). Not too mention that they can veto any software on the platform for any reason...

There are laws about dumping prices, beyond that it is business as usual.

Only slightly off topic, but are you aware of

[1] https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Japan-make-their-own-brand-O...

We still wouldn't have it; no way Apple w/o Steve Jobs but w/ BeOS survives.

I mostly agree.

Jobs was able to squeeze Microsoft. In a way I don't think any one else would or could.

Referring to Microsoft outright stealing Apple's IP and Gates' subsequent settlement. The $150m investment. The commitment to maintain Office on Mac. Forever license to all of Microsoft's API, enabling Mail.app to have pretty great integration with Exchange, for example.

BeOS was probably the better tech. But Jobs had the better strategies and the better team.

Compare this to Jonathan Schwartz cotemporaneous mismanagement of Sun's amazing IP, snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. Schwartz just wasn't a bare knuckled brawler like Jobs.

Schwartz was an odd duck in charge if another odd duck. His writing was a good read, but it was a little odd to see such antiestablishment talk from an establishment player. And in the near term, his own establishment suffered the most.

I used the hell out of Java, but most of their other tech was in the weird quadrant of cool stuff that I won’t use. Something about their fit and finish always left me cold. Or if not that, price point.

Who knows. Maybe BeOS also had other nice talented people working there, with good vision for products, that just needed more room and market that apple could provide. We will never know

Maybe! It’s more than just having the talent tho — you need to have a talented leader. Johnny Ive was at Apple for 5 years before Jobs showed up, without too much to show for it.

Maybe.

All conjecture. Had I finished my Java port (BeKaffe), the world would run on BeOs :).

If Apple had failed, I wonder what Steve would have done after Pixar. Start a new computer company? Could he (or perhaps a better question: would he) have swooped in with Mac compatibility mode?

The real win was a mobile future sans Microsoft. I doubt smart phones would be what they are today if not for the iPhone, and the iPhone required huge resources and a maniac cracking the whip. Would Jony Ive leave a failing Apple and work with Steve? If not, would we even have the iPod let alone the iPhone?

On the plus side, Nokia might have still been around.

Nokia is still around, and working from the offices I used to visit regularly in Espoo.

I wouldn't call that what's left after elopcalypse "alive" and "around"

Alive enough to be one of the best Android brands, that actually provide updates without having to pay Apple prices.

Around enough to still have a good networking business, and be the owner of Bell Labs.

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