Rachel Veraa wrote in a message to Jack Stein:

 RV> In a message to Roger Nelson, Jack Stein wrote:

JS> supporting OS/2, right damn next to WIN 3.1.  In less than a year,
JS> WIN would have been crushed as useless junk, and everyone would have
JS> been running OS/2.  

JS> IBM DID NOT WANT THAT TO HAPPEN!  

 RV> As you know perfectly well, IBM *couldn't* let it happen. 
 RV> Microsoft threatened to withhold licenses from OEMs that
 RV> preloaded or bundled OS/2, threatened to withhold
 RV> development tools from software producers who ported to
 RV> OS/2, and threatened to cut off IBM altogether if they
 RV> continued to press OS/2 -- and they increased IBM's price
 RV> for Windows %500 just to show they meant business.  Big Blue
 RV> would've been out of the PC business altogether in six
 RV> months. 

I doubt that Rachel.  IBM was the second largest distributor of software at
the time, far ahead of MS.  MS needed IBM to support their products.  Someone
here correctly said that IBM could have purchased MS OS's at street prices and 
still supported any customers that wanted that product, they already charge an 
arm and a leg for their support, the cost of the OS is almost meaningless in
these charges.  Also, the practices MS was threatening with were not very
supportive of the Sherman Anti Trust laws, and IBM is/was painfully aware of
how that could effect MS's ability to control the market with this type of
tactic. 

                                              Jack 
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