Sunday evening. Bill Gates gathers his team and decides to go with the go-ahead for IBM’s operating system project. They’ve purchased Paterson’s QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) and now they have to adapt it for IBM. Then, with Ballmer, they fly to negotiate with IBM. Even though Microsoft at the time had a turnover of $7.6 million and IBM $30 billion, Microsoft insists on retaining ownership of the OS, which IBM will make a global standard. The agreement stipulates the non-exclusive use of PC-DOS. Gates will, in fact, sell the same OS to other companies, under the name MS-DOS. And under the agreement, Gates retains ownership of the source code. This prohibits IBM from modifying the software, for example, to make it proprietary and shut down the whole thing, thus allowing the emergence of IBM PC clones and further expanding the MS-DOS installed base.
