By Ehden Biber
Learn how history has repeat itself, via the now-almost-forgotten-story of how Microsoft used lies and deceits in order to push a bad product and destroyed its competitors.
In the early 90s, Microsoft was dominating the market of Personal Computers (PC) Operating Systems (OSs). After the release of Windows in 1985, Windows 3.0 in 1990, and having its own version of OS/2 (an OS developed jointly with IBM) in 1987, Microsoft seemed unbeatable.
There was one market, however, that Microsoft had almost no impact. When it came to connecting computers via what is known as network operating system, UNIX systems dominated the market of big organizations, while in the SME domain one company ruled: Novell, Inc.
Novell Inc, a company that was founded in 1983, had a product called NetWare, and in 1987 it started selling its own network adapter cards, the most known for was NE1000, and became a huge success. In 1989 NetWare 3 allowed connectivity with apple Macintosh and UNIX systems.
Microsoft tried twice to challenge Novell, first with a product called MS-NET, and then with a product called Lan Manager. It failed miserably. Around 1993, NetWare had a roughly two-thirds share of the market for network operating systems.
And then The Empire Stroke Back.
In 1993 Microsoft has released a new product, called Windows NT 3.1. "NT" stood for "New Technology". It was an operating system that was based on OS/2, and came in two flavours: Windows NT 3.1 for workstations, and Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server for servers.
Microsoft claimed their product is superior to Novell's NetWare by stating that its product has been certified under the "Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria" (TCSEC), or the Orange Book, in what was known as C2 Orange Book certification.
I know. Orange what???
TCSEC was a US's Department of Defense (DoD) standard that set basic requirements for assessing the effectiveness of computer security controls built into a computer system.
TCSEC was used to evaluate, classify, and select computer systems being considered for the processing, storage, and retrieval of sensitive or classified information.
Microsoft got its Windows NT 3.1 certified as a C2 level OS under the "Orange Book" standard in July 1993.
At that time, Microsoft marketing machine was working extra hours, pushing the certification as a proof that their new product, in particular their NT 3.1 Advanced Server is superior to the products that were out there in the market, in particular Novell's NetWare.
Windows NT 3.1 was FAR from being "effective". It required A LOT of memory (which was very expensive in the early 1990s), It was slow. It has compatibility issues with almost all the hardware that existed in the market.
But it was safe.... right?
WRONG!
You can read about C2 here. C2 was sets of requirements that was added to other sets of requirements in the orange book, and was focused on controlled access protection. Alt-control-delete became a thing is because of C2.
What Microsoft was not telling anyone is that their Windows NT 3.1 certification as a C2 level OS under the "Orange Book" standard, especially when it came to their Advanced Server, was a deception.
Microsoft product was certified as a system without any network connectivity.
As National Computer Security Center (NCSC) Evaluated Products List (EPL) stated, "Because the evaluated configuration does not include a network environment, both products are considered standalone workstations". That didn't matter. Microsoft was pushing lies, and it worked.
While Windows NT 3.1 barely sold, it created a shift in the market of network servers. Novell's dominance in the market has crumbled. By 1997, Windows NT was winning 42 percent of new network operating system installations versus 33 percent for NetWare. MS destroyed Novell.
Bill Gates, who led Microsoft as its chairman and CEO, was the man that orchestrated these actions. He used every dirty trick in the book in order to push competition aside like he did when it came to internet browsers (Internet Explorer vs Netscape's Navigator).
Bill Gates, the man who pushed the "vaccines" as the solution to "end the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic", simply did what he always did - destroyed a known and effective products (Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine) while pushing a shitty product that was not safe nor effective.
Bill Gates moved from computers to "health", but stayed the same: a monopolist who would stop at nothing in order to gain dominance and control, while pretending he comes to solve your problems.
It's been 30 years, and we still listen to his lies and promises.
Unbelievable.
One last (technical) point - the "Orange Book" was part of a series of computer security standards and guidelines which was published by the United States government in the 1980s and 1990s, which were known as the rainbow series. The book that covered secure networks was called "Red Book", but like with the "vaccines", the truth didn't matter. Microsoft was pushing their product as a secure network solution, and like with the "vaccines", decision makers followed the lies and the hype, not the truth.
I will leave you with this image, which is the cover of U.S. News & World Report from February 15 1993.
The Baron of the information age, turned into the Baron of "Health", turned into the Baron of "Climate Change", and like the old Rockefeller, he is as dirty and as evil.
... amazing ...
Look, I don't like what Bill Gates is doing at all. I think that he has lost touch with basic humanity due to his financial success.
But this is a pretty simplistic take. To imply that Novell failed simply because of a marketing claim Microsoft made, is to overlook many other factors in a very competitive and dynamic environment. I'm not going to rewrite the history of the OS wars of the 90's here. But I am old enough to have participated in them, both outside of Microsoft, and within Microsoft. And I can tell you this is a simple take.
The tech industry was and still is very cutthroat. This was not something that only Bill Gates did. Look at the history of IBM, Oracle, Sun, Google, Facebook, on and on. You will see even more egregious acts.
Bill Gates today is a problem for sure. But the bigger problem is the concentration of power in the form of extreme wealth, in the hands of a few oligarchs whose hubris knows no bounds.