# IBM ships the PC with Microsoft’s DOS

Date: 1981

## The fact

On 12 August 1981 IBM announced the IBM PC with Microsoft’s MS-DOS, a completed licensing instrument that made [Gates](/people/bill-gates)’s firm the default PC operating-system vendor.

## Context

IBM chose Microsoft over others. Neighbouring founding is 1975. Neighbouring Windows 95 is later GUI. He did not write IBM’s board minutes.

Founding 1975 is neighbouring. US v. Microsoft 1998 is later monopoly litigation.

Bill Gates was Microsoft CEO until January 2000, chairman until February 2014, then a technical adviser until 2020, and a Gates Foundation co-chair. That is not authorship of every Windows copy, every GAVI dose, or every IRS schedule. Melinda French Gates is a different person. Bill Clinton is PER-000772, a different person. A pledge is not a coverage rate. A docket is not a personality.

## Evidence and sources

IBM carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is digital-platform-power and industrial-policy: a completed default-OS licence is a platform instrument with later tying costs stored separately.

## What is established and what is not

Established: 12 August 1981 IBM PC with MS-DOS, independently reported.

Not established: that competition vanished that day, or a unique later consumer-surplus coefficient.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

IBM shipped the PC. Clone makers later copied the interface. Courts later sat.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies IBM ships the PC with Microsoft’s DOS, not a later speech about IBM ships the PC with Microsoft’s DOS.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. IBM ships the PC with Microsoft’s DOS on 1981-08-12 is not a licence to treat every later IBM communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average IBM ships the PC with Microsoft’s DOS into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He licensed DOS. IBM shipped the PC. Clone makers later copied the interface. Courts later sat. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series.

## People

- Bill Gates: https://factrail.ai/people/bill-gates

## Drivers

- Digital-Platform Power Concentration: https://factrail.ai/drivers/digital-platform-power-concentration
- Industrial-Policy Activism: https://factrail.ai/drivers/industrial-policy-activism

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/technology/ibm-pc-msdos-1981/
- https://www.ibm.com/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ms-ibm-dos-1981