[aklug] How Microsoft almost killed TRON

This article is a few years old (2003) but I thought it was rather
interesting:
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/31855.html

The TRON project is an umbrella for a number of sub-projects for
building operating systems based on the open TRON architecture
specifications, which was started in Japan back in the 80s. The article
is about the popularity of ITRON and the possibilities of Linux and TRON
cooperation. The interesting bit though, are these paragraphs:

"The TRON Project is not new; in fact, it was poised to its mark more
than a decade ago, in Japan's PC industry, but the U.S. government
intervened. In 1989, Japanese electronics giant Matsushita introduced a
BTRON PC, a machine that stunned the industry with its advanced
capabilities. The BTRON PC had an 80286 Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) chip
running at 8 MHz and a mere 2 MB of memory, but it could display moving
video in color in a separate window. Also, it had a dual-booting system
that could run both the BTRON OS and MS-DOS.

"When the Japanese government announced it would install BTRON PC in
Japanese schools, the U.S. government objected. It called the Japanese
initiative "actual and potential market intervention" and threatened the
move with sanctions. The Japanese, dependent on the U.S. export market,
quickly dropped the plan. The U.S. government later withdrew its threat,
but the damage had already been done. Nearly all Japanese companies
involved in TRON-related activities had canceled their projects.

"Nevertheless, ITRON survived, and today it powers millions of Japanese
gadgets...

"In late September, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) surprised the industry by
joining the T-Engine Forum. Microsoft intends to work with the Forum to
establish specifications for an environment in which the T-Kernel and
Windows CE can coexist on the T-Engine hardware reference platform....

"Microsoft's decision to join the T-Engine Forum is not without irony.
The company was the main beneficiary of U.S. government actions against
the TRON project in 1989. Tom Robertson, Microsoft's Tokyo-based
director for government affairs in Asia, is a former official of the
United States Trade Representative office that issued the threats
against the Japanese government."

-- 
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theologia.indicium.us
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