A view of a “What if” moment in computing history
History has had many “What if” moments. These are events that could have easily gone more than one way and then had a lasting effect on the future. What if Alexander the Great had not died suddenly at a young age? What if the great Mongol general Batu, who was on the verge of overrunning most of Europe, had not had to abandon his campaign and return home because the reigning Great Khan had died?
Computing history has also had its “What if” events. One of the most consequential was IBM’s monumental failure to capitalize on its invention of the PC. CNet speculates on what might have been if things had gone a little differently. The author makes some interesting guesses about how the computing industry would have developed. He seems to think that IBM would have had a monopoly position that might have slowed down the development of things. He says
Would the tech industry have eventually evolved? Of course. But it would have taken a lot longer if IBM had played that deal differently.
However, I think he overlooks the fact that IBM was already under tremendous pressure from the US Justice Department and would not have been able to behave the way he speculates. In fact, the argument could be made that one reason IBM did so little to leverage its invention of the PC was fear of anti-trust prosecution. Although Microsoft basically thumbs its nose at the government these days, Big Business was a lot more leery of crossing the Justice Departnent in those days. The Bush Justice Department has no zeal for reining in monopolists. Another possible “What if” moment was when the Clinton Justice Department was replaced by the Bush appointees and gave Microsoft a tap on the wrist instead of enforcing any of the real remedies that had been considered previously.
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