Please don't stoop to worshipping Google, the new world doesn't allow giants in it anymore.
And Microsoft's main problem is, has always been, and is killing them now - that their software is rubbish. The DOS TSR model they have pushed since the 80's could only go so far. UNIX models are now, we know with 20-20 hindsight, the only viable long term OS model.
And what did M$ bring to the table, exactly? Everyone says "They made the desktop a reality when Apple were charging too much!" - maybe so, but did you NEED that desktop? No, really, seriously, did you need it?
PC's were incapable of running serious apps simultaneously until about the time Linux's X started to really work.
Word 5 for DOS was probably the last decent version of Word.
OS/2 was a near-perfect OS for small scale applications
There were others, nearly all forgotten.
So what was Windows? I'll tell you.
A backplane that allowed Word and Excell to be run at the same time.
I'll re-iterate that.
Windows was only ever: A backplane that allowed Word and Excell to be run at the same time.
All the hard work is done by the application writers.
AND - before you squawk "Driver Database! Driver Database!" - that's the same thing, the work was thrown onto the manufacturers whilst Microsoft just provided a truly awful API for them to work with, then another, then another....
Really.....Windows never brought much along at all. It is one of the most amazing marketing parlour tricks ever pulled off, like Madonna, like WMD's in Iraq - newsy and flashy and utterly empty. "Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing..."
And Microsoft's main problem is, has always been, and is killing them now - that their software is rubbish. The DOS TSR model they have pushed since the 80's could only go so far. UNIX models are now, we know with 20-20 hindsight, the only viable long term OS model.
And what did M$ bring to the table, exactly? Everyone says "They made the desktop a reality when Apple were charging too much!" - maybe so, but did you NEED that desktop? No, really, seriously, did you need it?
PC's were incapable of running serious apps simultaneously until about the time Linux's X started to really work. Word 5 for DOS was probably the last decent version of Word. OS/2 was a near-perfect OS for small scale applications There were others, nearly all forgotten.
So what was Windows? I'll tell you. A backplane that allowed Word and Excell to be run at the same time.
I'll re-iterate that.
Windows was only ever: A backplane that allowed Word and Excell to be run at the same time.
All the hard work is done by the application writers.
AND - before you squawk "Driver Database! Driver Database!" - that's the same thing, the work was thrown onto the manufacturers whilst Microsoft just provided a truly awful API for them to work with, then another, then another....
Really.....Windows never brought much along at all. It is one of the most amazing marketing parlour tricks ever pulled off, like Madonna, like WMD's in Iraq - newsy and flashy and utterly empty. "Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing..."