Information Processing; Software

Microsoft Delays Windows

Business Week

November 5, 1984

Microsoft Corp., the upstart software developer that rose to stardom when International Business Machines Corp. decided to use its software three years ago for the highly popular Personal Computer, may be headed for a fall. Its problems began in August, when IBM introduced TopView, a new computer program that will likely collide with Microsoft's next important product -- its Windows software. To make matters worse, the Bellevue (Wash.) company has acknowledged that the once-delayed Windows will be put off again. It will not be shipped until June, as long as six months after IBM is scheduled to begin selling TopView.

At the least, the delay may inhibit Microsoft's planned expansion into the market for applications software -- the specific instructions that tell a computer what to do. The company had planned to use its own Windows programs to expand into that arena. At worst, analysts suggest it could loosen the company's tight control of the business for personal computer operating systems -- the software that controls the basic functions of a computer -- which Microsoft has enjoyed since IBM licensed its MS-DOS. The delay is due to the complexity of Windows' design. The program is intended to let personal computer users split their displays into sections, allowing them to run different applications simultaneously with uniform, easy-to-use commands. Windows also will easily run numerous graphics programs, displaying charts, diagrams, and graphs.

NO WORRIES

While IBM's TopView initially will not run these easy graphics programs, observers predict that later versions will. They say also that the new program will make it possible for the computer giant to develop its own operating system. The result: an end to IBM's dependence on Microsoft's MS-DOS. "If Windows' lateness helps entrench TopView as a 'windowing environment,' it will also help it as an operating system," predicts Jan M. Lewis, a former Microsoft manager and now analyst at InfoCorp, a California market researcher.

For now, Microsoft is still growing rapidly, and management professes no worries. The privately held company, headed by computer whiz kid William H. Gates, racked up $100 million in revenues in the year ended June 30, a 50% increase over the year before. Microsoft executives claim that TopView will not usurp MS-DOS as the dominant operating system for IBM PCs. And even if that happened, they maintain that Microsoft would still have its leadership position in operating systems for the non-IBM part of the market.

Microsoft's current challenge is to maintain the confidence of the 30 computer makers that agreed to support Windows and the 50 key independent software vendors that signed up to develop applications software to work with the product. But that may not be easy. Already TeleVideo Systems Inc. has shelved plans to put Windows on its personal computer, and Software Publishing Corp., which makes the popular PFS software series, has put its Windows programs on the back burner.

Copyright 1984 McGraw-Hill, Inc.