Thursday, January 22, 2004

IBM refuses to buy Microsoft

Yes, but not now. In 1987, when Microsoft was struggling with its Windows development and facing growing up pains, Gates offered to sell 30% of his stake to IBM. Ofcourse the haughty IBM suits refused and the result is there for all to see now.

Many such interesting anecdotes are in the book I am currently reading, Business Blunders. Some are about financial frauds like collapse of Barrings and some are real jokes like the time an Engineering firm spent years unsuccessfully trying to build a canal to link two rivers. They finally realised they were forcing the water upstream.

It is good to know that we are not the only blunderers on Planet Earth :)

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