Steve Ballmer

We're still pipsqueak to IBM. And remember, we have no enterprise presence. And IBM has all dominant enterprise presence.

Interesting. Single copies. Some hobbyists and end users. Somebody who says, hey, I really want to use a spreadsheet. And a lot of users in enterprises. So it wasn't going through IT. You'd have a user that would buy a PC on the expense account, probably for the department, buy a copy of Windows, buy a copy of Excel, like at an Egghead Software. It was a software retailer at the time.

Interesting. Single copies. Some hobbyists and end users. Somebody who says, hey, I really want to use a spreadsheet. And a lot of users in enterprises. So it wasn't going through IT. You'd have a user that would buy a PC on the expense account, probably for the department, buy a copy of Windows, buy a copy of Excel, like at an Egghead Software. It was a software retailer at the time.

And bring them in and use them. And then IT started to get...

And bring them in and use them. And then IT started to get...

nervous about that we knew most of the copies not most but many of the copies were winding up in businesses what the hell ibm's gonna stomp us like a like a bug you just took as a given assumption that if ibm wants to stamp out this happening it's gonna happen so we oh yeah if we want a future we got to play with them yeah that's what that's why we were quote riding the bear the whole time because they'd stomp us out and they divorce us in 90 and then we say oh my god

nervous about that we knew most of the copies not most but many of the copies were winding up in businesses what the hell ibm's gonna stomp us like a like a bug you just took as a given assumption that if ibm wants to stamp out this happening it's gonna happen so we oh yeah if we want a future we got to play with them yeah that's what that's why we were quote riding the bear the whole time because they'd stomp us out and they divorce us in 90 and then we say oh my god

DOS was always sold to- OEM. Yeah, not always. But so much the lion's share, it's worth saying it was only sold because you needed a BIOS. Remember? You needed a BIOS. So you had to have the hardware vendor build the BIOS into the machine, basically. Right. So you've got that, the OEM business, which was already going strong. The OEM business was the biggest part of the business. Yep.

DOS was always sold to- OEM. Yeah, not always. But so much the lion's share, it's worth saying it was only sold because you needed a BIOS. Remember? You needed a BIOS. So you had to have the hardware vendor build the BIOS into the machine, basically. Right. So you've got that, the OEM business, which was already going strong. The OEM business was the biggest part of the business. Yep.

And then we had this retail business, and there was no notion of enterprise licensing.

And then we had this retail business, and there was no notion of enterprise licensing.

The Air Force was the first big Windows customer.

The Air Force was the first big Windows customer.

Our first big Windows customer, at least as I remember it, was the US Air Force. And they were buying single copies of Windows. When you say government, there's really two governments in this country. There's government and there's the military. And the military is a much more disciplined, advanced user of IT. They're just better. They're more professionally run than most parts of government.

Our first big Windows customer, at least as I remember it, was the US Air Force. And they were buying single copies of Windows. When you say government, there's really two governments in this country. There's government and there's the military. And the military is a much more disciplined, advanced user of IT. They're just better. They're more professionally run than most parts of government.

So yeah, it was the Air Force. So you got like a little bit, but.

So yeah, it was the Air Force. So you got like a little bit, but.

No, no, that's for sure true. Bill's passion, Bill had passions a lot of places. But you'd say the apps group and what Windows could deliver to the apps, quite appropriately, I'd say that's where a lot of Bill's brain cycles went. I had also hired Dave Cutler. Dave Cutler had been the architect of the VMS operating system for digital equipment. We had DOS and Windows.

No, no, that's for sure true. Bill's passion, Bill had passions a lot of places. But you'd say the apps group and what Windows could deliver to the apps, quite appropriately, I'd say that's where a lot of Bill's brain cycles went. I had also hired Dave Cutler. Dave Cutler had been the architect of the VMS operating system for digital equipment. We had DOS and Windows.

And when we were talking to Cutler about coming here, he says, I don't want to work any toy operating systems. And I had to say to Dave, good thing, because we have a toy operating system. But Dave is the key to getting us there. You know, we said, look, you got to build an operating system whose API looks like Windows and whose user interface looks like Windows.