Cooperation with IBM in the. sIntel s measures in the late 1970s as a reaction to increasing competition from other chip manufacturers paid off greatly and resulted in a remarkable technological lead against its competitors.
The most significant consequence, which was a landmark in the company s development, was IBM s decision to rely on the Intel 8088 microprocessor for its PCs in 1980. IBM short for International Business Machines has been the world s leading company in the big mainframe computers since the 1950s. Due to its dominance, it was often compared with a giant and referred to as Big Blue. Surprisingly, it was not before 198 1 the PC revolution had already been on for a few years that IBM introduced its own Personal Computer.
Because of IBM s dominance and worldwide reputation, its PCs soon became industry standard and penetrated the office market other established computer companies followed and introduced their own PCs - the so-called clones - which were compatible to IBM s models.
To maintain compatibility, all these manufacturers were forced to rely on Intel s microprocessors, which thus were bootstrapped to industry standard, too. As well as for Intel, the CPU manufacturer, IBM s decision has been crucial for a company in the software field Microsoft s Redmond, Washington MS-DOS was chosen as the IBM PC s operating system and became industry standard.
It is essential to every IBM compatible PC. Microsoft, a small company in 1980, grew explosively, and is today s superior software giant. At the beginning of the 1980s, IBM was concerned about Intel s ability to keep investing in R D and therefore decided to support Intel by buying 250 million 12 of the company s stock. This endorsed Intel s position, and, in 1987, IBM sold the last of its shares in a strong Intel.