Reply #42: The 'standardization" would have happened even without Billy

[Jose Diablo]

The Internet forced communication definitions and protocol standards.

This would have happened even without Microsoft. DARPA had more to do with development of TCP/IP standards than Microsoft. It was the military and colleges that inter-connected the core Internet we see today, not Microsoft.

As far as the Internet, Microsoft didn't even believe it would take off the way it did.

Microsoft is not the innovator many believe it to be. Many of the good software ideas came from small start-ups, only to see thier products absorbed by this big behemoth.

Of course, there are plenty of people around to claim it was Microsoft's baby. "Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan".

Edit, crummy spelling, sorry