Did Bill really design the IBM PC?

Bill Gates' successor, Steve Ballmer, was quoted as saying at the Microsoft's farewell to Gates: "Bill was really there at the birth of the modern personal computer. Bill really designed the IBM PC."

Gripe Line's Ed Foster isn't going to let such PC revisionist history slide, pointing out that honor belongs to the late Don Estridge of IBM. "As talented as Gates is," Foster writes, "he might very well have played an important role anyway, but without Estridge it's unlikely Microsoft would have even gotten into the OS business."

Gates couldn't resist a little history revision himself in his farewell, saying: "We got it right, betting on graphics interface, even though we told our competitors that they should (do it) and tried to get them to do it, they didn't."

Microsoft's real innovations since the introduction Windows 3.0 almost two decades ago, have been in ways to stifle competition, says Foster.

"Bill Gates deserves all kinds of praise because his impact on the software industry and technology in general has been enormous. But let's not revise history to pretend that his influence has been all to the good."

What do you think?

Posted by Caroline Craig on July 1, 2008 09:25 AM