Bill Gates came to my alma mater UCSD. I thought about the young people who would be there who've grown up in a Microsoft-only world. So I prepared a fact sheet for attendees.
Key facts: MS DOS was purchased from another company (QDOS). Microsoft Windows was a copy of Apple's Macintosh. Microsoft Word (1983) copied WordPerfect (1982). Excel (1985) copied Lotus 1-2-3 (1983). Microsoft has been convicted twice of illegal anticompetitive behavior.
Microsoft makes their money almost entirely from two products: Windows XP and Microsoft Office. Virtually every other venture (Xbox, MSN, WebTV) has not generated a profit. Through illegal tactics, Microsoft secured a monopoly which allows them to charge very high rates — 5 times the profit margin of the average top 500 US company.
Michael Robertson, Lindows.com
