Microsoft veteran and longtime Windows engineer, Raymond Chen, revealed an interesting story about how the Tab key became the standard for navigating through dialog windows in Windows operating systems.
The whole situation happened back in 1987 during the joint development of the OS/2 operating system between Microsoft and IBM.
A seemingly banal discussion related to a simple question – which key should be used to move between fields within a window.
IBM started a corporate debate on several levels because of the Tab key
The Microsoft development team wanted to use the Tab key, which has become the standard behavior of all Windows applications today.
However, IBM opposed this.
According to Chen’s explanation, IBM gradually raised the problem through its management hierarchy until the issue ended up on the desk of the company’s vice president, as many as seven decision levels above the developers themselves.
That senior executive reportedly objected to using the Tab key as a standard.
IBM then requested that Microsoft secure confirmation from its own management of the same rank in order to make a final decision.
“Bill Gates’ mother doesn’t care about the Tab key”
Microsoft’s response has become part of the company’s internal history.
According to Raymond Chen, Microsoft practically said:
“Bill Gates’ mother doesn’t care about the Tab key.”
The message was clear — that kind of technical detail is not something senior executives should be concerned with at all.
In this way, the discussion was practically finished, and the Tab key became the standard that is still used today, almost four decades later.
The story reveals the huge differences between Microsoft and IBM
Raymond Chen points out that this anecdote shows very well how different Microsoft and IBM were in terms of organizational culture.
Even then, Microsoft favored a decentralized approach where engineers had great freedom to decide on technical details.
On the other hand, IBM operated through a strict hierarchy and multi-layered approval system where even the selection of a single button could end up at the top management level.
Although today the Tab navigation seems completely natural and standard, behind it is apparently one of the most bizarre corporate discussions in the history of the development of modern operating systems.