Bill Gates calls his childhood friend Gary Kildall to send him the IBM people. He advises them to treat them well because they are important people. The four men, wearing ties and black suits, show up at the Kildall house, but only his wife is there, because her husband has preferred to give priority to his private plane flight. His wife refuses to sign the Non-Disclosure Agreement they present. Kildall’s CP/M has just lost its chance to become the world leader in software. After his disappointment with Kildall, Bill Gates calls an old acquaintance of Paul Allen’s: Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products. This time, instead of sending IBM to them, Microsoft takes care of it directly. He calls Steve Ballmer: “You’re the only other member of the company who can wear a tie.” In September, he will have the contract with IBM. Microsoft has purchased Paterson’s QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) and now they must adapt it for IBM. The agreement provides for the non-exclusive use of PC-DOS. Gates will sell the OS to other companies, under the name MS-DOS. And under the agreement, Gates retains ownership of the source code, thus prohibiting IBM from modifying the software, for example, to make it proprietary and shut it down, further expanding the MS-DOS installed base.
