[cap-talk] The TCSEC influence on computersecurity/systems (was: Re: Horton at HotSec...)

[James A. Donald]

Stiegler, Marc D wrote:
 > Almost no one remembers today that, when the first IBM
 > PC came out, it did not come with a bundled MS-DOS
 > operating system. Rather, the purchaser of the PC
 > picked, at purchase time, to either buy the MS-DOS
 > operating system from Microsoft (a little-known
 > company) or to buy CPM-86 from the premier desktop
 > operating system vendors at the time, Western Digital.
 > IBM did not care at all which one you picked. There
 > was no significant technical merit for one over the
 > other; CPM-86 was not upwardly compatible from CPM, so
 > there was not an established based of applications for
 > CPM-86 that would make it more valuable. However,
 > Western Digital, knowing that they owned the
 > prestigious brand, offered their os for a prestigious
 > price. MS-DOS cost about 1/4th as much, as I recall.
 > And thus was history made.

Microsoft also offered considerably better developer
support.  Bill Gates realized that the most important
thing was to get developers aboard.  Western Digital
seemd to think that developers were parasites, reaping
where Western Digital had plowed.