> This is known as planned obsolescence -- the standard
> practice of monopoly capital. So knowing what is lying ahead in computer
> development did not require much insight or luck, just being 'in the know'
> which way the captains of industry plan to sail.
>
It's certainly true that the pc-xt was technically obsolete the day it wasintroduced. But I don't think it was planned obsolescence as much as an attempt by IBM to minimize development costs.
Gate's initial luck (if that's what it was), was in getting IBM to acquiese to a deal that was incredibly favorable to Microsoft. I suspect that IBM simply didn't appreciate the implications of the deal (I believe I once read an account of IBM management's hindsight regret over this deal.)
There's probably a lot of 'path dependence' (if you'll forgive the jargon) at work in Microsoft's ascension. While Gates may be the master of monopolizing contracts, it's important to remember that there are enormous economies to standardization in software and immense inertia among software users (the cost of changing operating systems is very high). Once MS-DOS was established as the dominant operating system, maintaining its dominance may not have been that difficult.
It is amusing to note that Microsoft itself tried to get rid of Windows and failed. When NT was introduced (this was prior to Windows 95), Microsoft tried to get everyone to adopt it. Originally Windows 3.x was (I believe) supposed to be the end of the Windows line. When NT didn't take off, Windows 95 was intially introduced as an interrum os until everyone switched to NT. At this point, Microsoft appears resigned to continuing the Windows line - at least I haven't heard anything lately about it being terminated.
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