Whether Kildall actually blew IBM off at that meeting or not, what was definitely the case was that CP/M didn't have a 16-bit version ready to meet IBM's schedule, and that's what ultimately took them out of the running.
Whether Kildall actually blew IBM off at that meeting or not, what was definitely the case was that CP/M didn't have a 16-bit version ready to meet IBM's schedule, and that's what ultimately took them out of the running.
If you watch the documentary it’s an interview with the people who were there. There might be some discrepancy but I think the IBM guys were being honest about how it went down. The doc is on the Internet archive and worth a watch.
You get the idea that it wasn’t some brilliant business strategy by Microsoft, the deal for the operating system wasn’t that good for them initially.
From the transcript: https://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html
Jack Sams (IBM):
Gary had some other plans and so he said well, Dorothy will see you. So we went down the three of us...
Gordon Eubanks Former Head of Language Division, Digital Research: IBM showed up with an IBM non-disclosure and Dorothy made what I...a decision which I think it's easy in retrospect to say was dumb.
Jack Sams: We popped out our letter that said please don't tell anybody we're here, and we don't want to hear anything confidential. And she read it and said and I can't sign this.
Gordon Eubanks: She did what her job was, she got the lawyer to look at the nondisclosure. The lawyer, Gerry Davis who's still in Monterey threw up on this non-disclosure. It was uncomfortable for IBM, they weren't used to waiting. And it was unfortunate situation - here you are in a tiny Victorian House, its overrun with people, chaotic.
Jack Sams: So we spent the whole day in Pacific Grove debating with them and with our attorneys and her attorneys and everybody else about whether or not she could even talk to us about talking to us, and we left.
………. Bill Gates: Digital research didn't seize that, and we knew it was essential, if somebody didn't do it, the project was going to fall apart.
Steve Ballmer: We just got carried away and said look, we can't afford to lose the language business. That was the initial thought - we can't afford to have IBM not go forward. This is the most exciting thing that's going to happen in PCs.
Bill Gates: And we were already out on a limb, because we had licensed them not only Basic, but Fortran, Cobol Assembler er, typing tutor and Venture. And basically every - every product the company had we had committed to do for IBM in a very short time frame.