Even until as late as 1986 some companies like Digital Equipment with their
machine, the Rainbow, were very focused on CP/M-86 and not on Microsoft MS-
DOS. And then by 1986, Digital Research kind of stopped really trying to compete
and MS-DOS really pushed ahead.
DKA: Let's talk about one of your principle applications that came fairly early on that
was the development of a word processor, Microsoft Word. What characterized
Microsoft Word?
BG: Microsoft Word, although it was the second application that we came out
with after Multiplan, was really a milestone because with this one we decided we'd
really do something forward, very forward looking. We'd hired Charles Simonyi from
Xerox PARC. We knew that graphics interface was where it's at. We knew that laser
printers were going to be very big. So we designed something whose underlying
structure was ready for the graphical world. In fact, we made it so that it could show
italic and bold, it could work with the mouse, and it was laying things out internally
to immense precision. So, even though the screen didn't have that precision it would
print with very high quality. We were making it ready for the laser printers that were
going to come. The user interface here was identical to the Multiplan user interface.
There was a family of products that we called the Multi-Tool Family of products.
There was Multi-File and Multi-Chart. Those were Microsoft's character-mode
applications. We saw that selling these applications would actually be as big a business
for us as doing the operating system itself. Our color at the time was green. So this is
the documentation we came out with for Word. And although Word was very much
praised for its technical richness and anybody who got to use features that had these
so called Òstyle sheetsÓ and the ability to use this mouse pointing device wasn't
necessarily as easy to use because of the manual and other products that were out
there. So, although MicroPro with WordStar really started to fall apart, the vacuum
was filled by a number of products; Word to some degree, Aston-Tate had their
MultiMate product that they had bought. There were a number of products.
But WordPerfect over time really took the role that WordStar had had. So, 1-2-3 and
WordPerfect became strong products, partly with the introduction of the PC. 1-2-3
came along a little more than a year after the PC had shipped, in January 1983. And
that really helped to push things along. Because this machine was from IBM that
helped. But people who think historically think, well, IBM was preordained to
dominate the market. There is just no way that's true. IBM succeeded because they
had a good team. They were the first to be serious about a 16-bit machine. They
worked with us. They worked with Intel, with Sears, and Computerland.