Anyone remeber the trials and tribulations of Be Inc.? They started out by building a "legacy-free OS" and a "legacy-free PC". The hardware market didn't do it for them, so they recast themselves as a high-performance "legacy-free OS" and migrated from dual-CPU PowerPC to dual-CPU x86 boxes, and whatever hardware Fry's has on sale this week.
But they couldn't get anyone to adopt BeOS because no one would bundle it. Microsoft cut off their air supply through licensing terms that forced large manufacturers to pay both Microsoft and Be for every PC shipped with BeOS. Be cried foul and eventually went out of business.
The issue has finally been resolved: Microsoft settled with Be for $23 million + lawyers fees.
The Be story is finally over. This footnote in the history of Microsoft^Wthe industry is complete.
