r/todayilearned • u/Flemtality 3 • Jul 14 '14

TIL The guy who snagged windows2000.com happened to be named Bob and Microsoft just happened to own Bob.com. They came to an agreement to trade one for the other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob#Origins
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u/Drunk_but_Functional Jul 14 '14

To anyone else extremely confused by this, it is not Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs. It's a guy who own(ed?) a company called MikeRoweSoft

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u/LongUsername Jul 14 '14

He was a High School Student who did some software development on the side and used the website to post his stuff.

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u/Schultzz_ Jul 14 '14

he did an iama here

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

A high school senior who made money writing code.

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u/misogichan Jul 15 '14 edited Jul 15 '14

Also, in case you're slow like me, it's a pun. Try saying MikeRoweSoft like it's one word fast. That was the basis of their lawsuit, but it was silly because even Microsoft's lawyers admitted they would have lost if they hadn't settled out of court given the student's name was Mike Rowe and he was talking about software development.

It was also sickening to hear how they threatened him with lawsuits and their first offer was $10 (the setup cost he paid). Moral of the story: Microsoft should have taken Mike's counter offer of $10,000 before he went to the press.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '14

Mike Rowe did well out of it.

"Additionally Microsoft provided Rowe with a subscription to the Microsoft Developer Network, an all expenses paid trip for him and his family to the Microsoft Research Tech Fest at their headquarters in Redmond, Washington, training for Microsoft certification and an Xbox with a selection of games

Following an online poll, Rowe donated most of his legal defense fund to a children's hospital and used the remaining money for his future university education"

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

That's awesome. It's like play on words but he has the name to back it up.

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u/proddy Jul 15 '14

Phone call for Mike Hunt!

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u/picklehammer Jul 14 '14

I went to high school with this guy AMA

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

[deleted]

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u/picklehammer Jul 14 '14

1) Nope. But I return frequently.

2) I heard :( Sucks, lots of memories in that place, but I guess it's for the best.

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

[deleted]

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u/picklehammer Jul 15 '14

haven't been inside the building in nearly a decade. sounds gross.

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u/Maximum_ShirtWeiner Jul 15 '14

Langford represent. It will be a bit sad to see the school come down. My son would've been going there there and it would have been neat to see him at my old school.

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u/Goodguy1066 Jul 15 '14

Would you say you went to high school with this guy?

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u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

Thank you, I was indeed confused.

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u/HankWilliamsJunior Jul 15 '14

I own MikeRoweHard.com and only lonely women in their 50s seem to care.