Cable says no to Gates again; CableLabs group reaffirms desire for open operating system for digital boxes. (cable operators say no to Microsoft Corp.'s proprietary operating system)

Broadcasting & Cable, November, 1997 by Higgins, John M.

Bill Gates has failed in a second push to convince cable operators to adopt Microsoft Corp.'s proprietary operating system. Cable operators have ignored the billions of dollars the software titan keeps dangling and publicly affirmed their support for standards that will be open to other software companies.

While ostensibly for open standards, Microsoft Chairman Gates and his executives have continued to quietly lobby operators to reverse course, industry executives say. Microsoft wants operators to adopt its Windows CE operating system to drive their advanced digital set-top boxes.

That would let Gates set the standards for the millions of computerlike digital boxes that operators plan to deploy over the next few years, thwarting such other...

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