Submitted by This humorous article depicts the computing world without Microsoft– Apple has the biggest marketshare (15%), HP bought Commodore, IBM thinks text-based interfaces are the best thing for customers, and hardware-accelerated 3D is a no-go because all the various parties cannot agree on a standard. And Microsoft? Aren’t they selling BASIC?
Besides that, I think that if IBM did not choose (by almost pure chance) Microsoft for the CP/M clone providers when they released the IBM PC we would simply have a different corporation as big as Microsoft, only with another name. 🙂
Now how about a serious “What if” article thinking about what would have happened if MS and IBM had stayed together on OS/2? Not as unbelievable as you may think – IIRC, MS only decided to throw itself behind Windows when a single of their coders fixed a memory management issue with the software.
Consider the implications for Linux: IBM is one of Linux’ biggest backers.
If IBM would had added the WPS and MVDM subsystems to the product (and had time to rewrite it to make the WPS less fragile), and if the product had Microsoft’s marketing behind it, I suspect we’d all have had a decent desktop OS ten years ago.
Linux would still be around and would still have serious advantages, though. The fact that it’s open source and multi-user are two big pluses.
The idea of a 32-bit OS/2 core running DirectX games is an interesting one, though. 🙂
even though it is meant to be a joke, it’s stupid.
This alternate universe, while possible based on physics theory, would not be because MS never existed.
> hardware-accelerated 3D is a no-go because all the
> various parties cannot agree on a standard
OpenGL anyone?
OpenGL anyone?
Did you read the article?
I read the article, and I thought of OpenGL as well.
Quote the mystical phrase which explains why the OpenGL standard isn’t a standard
Haha, did you? I found it funny that the article proposed just a few gfx technologies (while today, in the “good” after-Microsoft world we still have two competing technologies).
Major graphics technologies were around long before Microsoft embraced it. The software and the hardware was there. It wasn’t where it is today, of course; but it was developing quickly. PC gfx are only where they are because printed circuit boards and silicon processors and RAM have all gotten so cheap that people can buy what amounts to a storageless PC attached to their PC as an add on card (just for gfx calculations). Of course, this PC has a more specialized processor: But it does have a procoessor, RAM, BIOS, printed circuit board, and cooling.
10 years ago PC’s were just getting under the $1000 mark with very little on them; so this was out of reach.
And none of that has been Microsoft. It’s been the standardization on the hardware which Microsoft was the first to ship an OS for (a pathetic OS, for its day).
If Microsoft has done anything it’s probably been in helping make computers seem less frightening to people (well, at least until they have it for a while). I’ve never been one to buy into ease of use studies, but I think there’s a lot to making the computer seem more familiar for those who are too stupid to get over their fear (stupid is the right word).
Like Voodoo used OpenGL? (bad copy)
OpenGL came from the workstation market which wasn’t exactly hometurf for Microsoft.
Seem like MS invented the GUI.. stupid
Apple and Microsoft made the GUI the de-facto standard for home computing. They didn’t invent it, no, but they embraced it.
Well, IBM had a hand in it, too. Didn’t they develop the CUA standards that Windows is based on?
One could also argue that Microsoft introduced a GUI, but Apple and IBM introduced *useful* GUIs. 🙂
Yeah. Amiga nor Atari haven’t got any GUI. It was Bill Geates who invented it all. From CPU to Internet.
No no Al Gore invented the internet
No no Al Gore invented the internet
That flat-out lie is extremely annoying
The lie being that Gore ever claimed such a thing.
http://www.sethf.com/gore/
Yeah, and those two companies really had an impact on getting a computer into every home, didn’t they?
Where are they now?
Yeah, and those two companies really had an impact on getting a computer into every home, didn’t they?
Yes, they did.
Where are they now?
Amiga as a company is down on thier backs. AmigaOS is doing better thanks to two efforts of AmigaOS4 by Hyperion and MorphOS (API/ABI compatible OS with extensions) from MorphOS-Team.
Atari name was sold to Infogames, IIRC.
Multitasking and Multimedia were both available on Amiga when PCs were still going “beep”, but could only manage one beep at a time. And of course, everything else had to wait while the beep happened.
The Amiga was killed by the crap company that owned it. Nothing to do with Microsoft. With or without Microsoft it would have died.
Yes and as a result carpal tunnel problems, like some mutant virus, leaped from construction workers to office workers due the gui’s use of the dumbest invention ever made – the mouse.
Right stupid, Xerox/PARC aren’t even mentioned.
…concerning software prices. Did anyone notice that the article mentioned high (relative to today) hardware and software prices? But the software prices mentioned are pretty close to what todays software vendors still take for their products.
Server products would be just about the same place they are today, maybe not with the same cheap x86 hardware, but the technology would be just as advanced.
Linux, the BSDs and other software projects would still have evolved to the point they are today so there would be inexpensive (free) software available to people who wanted it. It might even have been much more popular in the face of slower moving commercial products.
Workstations would be about as advanced, but they’d all be unix. MS has cut into the workstation market and if they hadn’t, lots of other things would have developed.
The average home would obviously not have high speed internet and gaming computers but who cares? Humanity has existed for 1000s of years without computers in their homes and another 50-100 years wouldn’t have made a difference. Especially if we could have taken the time to do it right, without so many viruses, spyware and other frustrations.
one of the major reasons linux was founded was because Linux was fed up with Windows and Unix
one of the major reasons linux was founded was because Linux was fed up with Windows and Unix
No. Linux was invented because Linus Torvalds wanted a Unix-like system on his new 386 computer, he didn’t think he could afford a commercial version, he didn’t know about the BSDs at the time (because of the AT&T thing still going on) and he wanted to learn how to program it.
Using Minix wasn’t an option either because of its license and limitations.
Windows was probably on Linus’ radar, but I don’t think he took it seriously. He just wasn’t interested in it; it was irrelevant to his wants and needs.
one of the major reasons linux was founded was because Linux was fed up with Windows and Unix
Actually with MS-DOS and Minix.
Where’s BeOS in all of this? That, and I doubt machines would be so terribly underpowered just because microsoft never existed. Oh well, at least there’d still be some good OSes (amiga, mac os classic).
-bytecoder
Well, I personally have heard people talk about conspiracy theories about a deal MS and intel has, in order to keep the x86 market moving, namely MS coding Bloated resource In-efficent applications, so that Intel can sell System builders new CPU’s, because MS Windows needs them in order to run.
And this then makes people buy these new systems so they are running a current version of Windows on a machine that runs it at a decent performance.
As I say this is just a conspiracy theory that I’ve heard on a few occasions, but in some respects it does make some sense, so if MS didnt exist CPU’s would be slower (in terms of Mhz) than what they are now, but performance wise is another matter.
Look at SGI machines, a 600Mhz MIPS system is classed as a good speed SGI system.
Also check out what NeXT Inc. achieved with 33Mhz (their most powerful systems) Motorola processors.
We would all be happy.
– […] Microsoft made the GUI the de-facto standard
– for home computing.
1985 Amiga Workbench-1.2
http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/amigawb.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga
I remember in 1985 everybody used plain (MS-)DOS on their IBM-/Dell-/NEC-/Compaq- PC’s ’til the early 90’s
when MS Windows 3.0 or 3.1 where released.
Yeah, this was the situation when I was growing up. I was playing with Apple’s System 6 and 7 on my father’s Macs while my friends were stuck in DOS. They had more pirated games though.
osnews would have never existed haha
then there would be an other big company lucky enough to be chosen by ibm to do the os for the ibm pc.
Though being Linux advocate, I’ve been writing code for Windows since the good (?) old days of Windows 3.0. (Still do)
While being a brutal monopoly that has been holding back the world of software development for years now (just compare what Linux did in 10 years to what MS did between NT4 and XP, and you’ll see what I mean), As much as I hate Microsoft, MS is (a big) part of the reason we have PCs in front of us.
Without MS I doubt that we’d have a single hardware and software (yuck) platform and both the corporate and home computing experience would have been radically different…
However,
But CP/M?
Apple memory limitation?
No multitasking?
Hardware price being low?
No hardware 3D?
No GUI?
In 20 years, MS didn’t really lead the pack with amazing innovation. For from it.
GUI? Apple had it years before.
32bit? OS/2, Unix, etc.
Hardware 3D? Should I remind you that NT 4.0 didn’t have DirectX but did have hardware based OpenGL?
Hardware prices? What MS has to do with that?
If MS would have never existed, someone else would have replaced it… (though hopefully, with less crushing results)
— But CP/M?
Amiga OS, GEM, and a dozen others
–Apple memory limitation?
Ditto.
–No multitasking?
Amiga OS was multitasking as far back as Workbench 1.3, 1987
–Hardware price being low?
From the days when people brought $2000 IBM’s over more capable $400
Amiga, probably.
–No hardware 3D?
Didn’t ID start on Next ? As long as Doom et al make an appearence 3D gets accelerated.
–No GUI?
Is that a troll 🙂 MS were the last to jump on the GUI bandwagon.
never existed, things probably would have been pretty much the same anyway. Except that Windows95 would’ve have been OS/2 4 instead (oops… OS/2 4 does exist
The GUI wasn’t invented by MS or Apple and it was doomed to happen sooner or later. People tend to forget that there was many other GUIs on the PC desktop BEFORE Windows. GEM is one – and it’s still around.
The funny part is that the article leaves FLOSS out. That’s interesting. Apart from that, the article was pretty boring – and not fun at all.. just plain ol’ boring…
This was written by someone totally clueless.
Lets list a few modern GUI’s that xsisted while PeeCee users were running their little DOS programs.
1) Apple Lisa
2) Apple Macintosh
3) Atari GEM
4) Amgia Workbench (NOT DEVELOPED IN RESPONSE to Microsoft asshat)
5) GEOS
6) RISC OS
7) NextStep (ALSO PREDATES WINDOWS 3)
8) OS/2 (1.0 was released before Windows 3)
9) Sun NeWS (display postscript)
10) X-Windows (lots of GUI technology there)
ALL of those were released and available and competing with each other BEFORE Windows 3 was Released. I use Windows 3 because before that Windows 1-2 was just another boxy character interface on top of a dos shell. Basically, nothing more than a copy of what Linux users now call Midnight Commander.
In short….this guy is a total asshat that worships at the false god alter of Microsoft. Resist the readmonians, they are not true gods. Listen to the Tau’ri!
…and it was actually a good platform if one used a replacement shareware shell like Aporia instead of the MS Executive (Aporia was the precursor to WinTools, and it provided a multi-window file manager with a drag-and-drop interface and an icon-based desktop under Windows 2.x).
You’re right, though, that the standard Windows 2.1 was pretty sucky in terms of UI. So was 3.0/3.1 and NT 3.1, for that matter.
“8) OS/2 (1.0 was released before Windows 3) ”
OS/2 1.0 did not have a GUI.
From wikipedia (which may also be off): “The promised GUI, Presentation Manager, was introduced with OS/2 1.1 in November 1988.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2
OS/2 (1.0 was released before Windows 3)
OS/2 1.0 was GUI-less, 1.1 had a fairly primitive GUI that looked similar to Windows 2.0. 1.3 Had a GUI very similar to Windows 3.0.
See:
http://www.os2bbs.com/os2news/OS2History.html
http://pages.prodigy.net/michaln/history/
3) Atari GEM
Atari did not invent GEM, Digital Research (DRI) (the people behind CP/M, the ‘Microsoft’ of 8-bit computing.) did.
It was first implemented on the IBM PC, then licenced to Atari, just before DRI had to cripple it because it was too mac-like for Apple’s liking. (Although I always thought it more resembled the Lisa…) GEM 2 onwards for the PC was crippled, leaving it to lose the GUI-wars to Microsoft. The Atari version was not affected by the Apple lawsuit, so continued to have the GEM 1 look and feel.
Interestingly, a multitasking version of GEM (known as XM/GEM) was in development when development ceased. The rights to GEM went to Novell, along with the rest of DRI, and then to Caldera, who released all GEM related source code under the GPL. Hobbyists have improved the look and feel, but the technological level has not changed since DRI last developed it.
You forgot a top 3 contender for GUI:
The big news at the time was Desqview. Desqview 386 was popular for windowing DOS based programs and I remember that Desqview X was announced a few months before the latest in Windows 3.0 and after OS2 Lite.
Surely PC-DOS and Desqview X would have lasted for years.
Bill Gates: “Dad, I have this great idea – when I grow up I want to put a computer on every desktop.”
Dad: “Won’t work, son. World doesn’t need more than three computers and then what’ll you do.”
Bill Gates: “But dad, what’ll I do when I grow up!”
Dad: “Hmmn, well you like pets, don’t you? You’ve always liked Hammy. How about becoming a vet?”
Bill Gates: “Hey, I’ve got it. A hamster on every desktop! They can keep lonely workers company and I’ll rig up a little generator on their wheel so people can afford to have a light on while they type!”
Dad: “Son, we always knew you were a genius.”
Wow, what a bunch of crap! I guess the writer knows nothing about economics in a free market. When there are more competitors with meaningful market share there is more competition. When there is more competition product quality and innovation increases and price decreases. A better question is what would the computer world look like if there wasn’t one company with a software monopoly. I truly believe by now we would be having conversations with our computers. Freedom enables, monopoly stifles.
ACTUALLY, the effects of a monopoly vary widely. Please don’t try to shoehorn a simple solution to a complex problem. I generally think that the downsides to a monopoly far outweigh the benefits. However, unless you can further qualify your statement, with illustration and examples, don’t make such broad, sweeping generalizations. I will agree that generally your assertions are largely true, though.
What would have been a more interesting “alternative history” would be the one where Microsoft had successfully convinced IBM to use Xenix instead of what became DOS.
I know it was a joke…but…It would have actually been funny if he started out with reality of the late 80’s and early 90’s.
Anyone who actually owned an Amiga knows what I am talking about. If you look at the progression of the Amiga over it’s short life span and make some assumptions about where it would be today, you might find that it would be far more advanced than what we have today. Especially considering that it took 5-10 years for Microsoft and the PC world to catch up in a number of areas that Commodore was leading technologically after the demise of the Amiga.
If anything, Microsoft has done more to stifle innovation than promote it. This is always the case with a monopoly.
Granted, I will give in and say that Microsoft and the culture it has spawned has probably had a siginificant impact on storage capacity and CPU clock speeds. But only because you need the ever growing resources to run the ever growing crud they call products in a useful manner.
Somehow I feel inspired by this. One could write it a whole lot better with a little bit of research though
As mentioned, where’s Xerox, where’s this where’s that..how about a real alternate Universe were the battle is between Lisp-machines and Prolog-machines
I think it’s totally ridiculous to suggest that there would be less progress and more cost if there wasn’t a dominant computer. Just look at the massive progress of software and hardware in the 80s, before the IBM PC and Windows became so dominant. As for the price of hardware and software, I think that competition between more companies would actually lower prices.
There was always budget software and low cost hardware even back in the days of dozens of different 8bit computers made by small companies. Even taking inflation into account I think I spent a lot less on GEOS and various apps for my C64 than I spent on MS Windows and Office. When I bought an Acorn Archemedies in the late 80s it was significantly cheaper than a similar IBM clone, despite the Archie being a far superior computer.
There were tools available to read disks formatted on other computers and document converters to read files. I happily shared work done on my Acorn with Mac and Windows users. I think it’s inevitable that standards for things like 3D graphics would have developed even with different competing OSes.
This article is such a crock of sh*t. Let’s face it, MS has always just copied other peoples’ innovations. Without MS mainstream OS developement would be lightyears ahead.
..that thanks to a malicious monopoly hardware is cheaper and more standardised? And that maybe we should be praising Microsoft?
Thanking Microsoft for internet…where did that come from anyway? There were standards being used (and used by UNIX platforms no less) well before Microsoft.
And with internet, demands for storage mediums go up. Let’s not forget almost all platforms have some form of compatibility with IDE or SCSI disks.
The only slightly valid argument raised is that we can thank Microsoft for improved processor speeds in home computers, and thank them simultaneously for needing those improved processor speeds.
BTW Amiga was a formidable games platform in the face of the competition with MS-DOS, so without Microsoft they wouldn’t have done any worse either.
Before Windows 3.1, I was logging into a network based upon MIT’s Athena. I have reasonably rich GUIs, Kerberos-based authentication and I I could run all my applications on which ever workstation I happed to sit in front of. Today, Microsoft has a nicer GUI and Kerberos-based authentication, but they still don’t allow me to log onto any workstation and have my configuration, licenses and files follow me. Andrew has file sharing features that are light years beyond Microsoft’s SMB. Without any help from Microsoft, NeXT produced an absolutely beautiful GUI. Without Microsoft, the BSDs and Linux OSes were created. Microsoft has done a great deal, but the world is a lot bigger than Redmond. We would have figured out how to exploit Moore’s Law (and Metcalf’s Law, etc) even without Microsoft.
but they still don’t allow me to log onto any workstation and have my configuration, licenses and files follow me.
Allthough some users on my subnet refuse to use anything but MS,i prefer FreeBSD,well nice to play with them though.
But to be honest:
Ever heard of roaming profiles and active directory?
In 1992 my experience of the Net was often through SGI Indy (one of popular workstations in my Uni.) I followed much of the early steps of the WWW on that machine.
Coming home to my 486 with DOS/Windows3.1 almost made my cry everytime!
And those SGI machines had all the potential to become cheaper (the design and mix of features was right). Also without MS-Intel allieance, much more sensible processor development would be taken. Probably we’d be having kick-ass machines powered by MC68090 or something or MIPS’s R12K by now.
I didn’t even -use- a Microsoft, Microsoft inspired or Microsoft-caused piece of software or technology until the mid 1990’s.
MS developed nothing, caused nothing, inspired nothing and invented nothing. My SGI Indy came shipped ISDN, a recognisable ethernet card and TCP/IP stack when Windows wasn’t even able to do networking natively. There goes the one about fast net not being available
Oh, it also had OpenGL. Windows didn’t. There goes the 3D assertion.
Sure, it cost 15 thousand bucks. Yeah, maybe MS has brought prices down. However, whats brought software prices down recently is competition from free software, NOT Microsoft.
The entire article is utter bollox, tantamount to Microsoft propaganda.
FYI, Windows NT 3.5 had OpenGL in September 94 when it came out.
Before long, an OpenGL implementation existed for all versions of Windows commonly in use, including Windows 3.1 (16 bit) and Windows 95 (bastard 32/16 bit OS) and even for straight DOS through either Microsoft or others.
This isn’t to say that Microsoft created anything revolutionary here; this is only to say that you haven’t done your research in terms of Microsoft having proper 3D support. Whether it was a fast implementation is a different question entirely, as there wasn’t much in the way of OpenGL hardware acceleration available for the PC platform at that time, period. Microsoft had enough foresight to see the value of supporting OpenGL back then, even if they intended on having something else replace it later on.
he meant at *that* point in time, windows did NOT have opengl, or much any 3d api. Read a post more carefully before responding.
-helf
Helf, he didn’t say which year
1994 clearly would qualify as “mid-90’s” wouldn’t it???
I don’t think that just not having MS dominate the OS space would have resulted in this alternate history.
I think that this alternate timeline may also have suffered from AT&T winning against BSD, keeping many of the technologies we take for granted today out of our hands. Forget the rise of GNU and other free software. Plus increased enforcement of patents and lawsuits.
Just losing MS as the dominant player would not have resulted in the timeline described.
But innovated nothing. There is not a single technology that exsits today that MSFT “invented” Every Idea is a rehash, redone version of something someone else created. MSFT might be the first to blend multiple different Ideas together but they aren’t the leader in designing those ideas to begin with.
Hardware would be just as cheap. Software wouldn’t be that much different though. IBM most likely wouldn’t be a friend of F/OSS. OS/2 would of evolved. Market forces would ensure that one tech would stand out. But we would have every piece of tech we do today. Heck they might even work together under standard’s complaince.(yea maybe not)
Just remember people. MSFT didn’t invent anything that you use today. MSFT only brought them together and in the darkness bound them.
After the first few lines i already knew it was an idiot tha wrote it.
No need to read the whole crappy thing.
People keep forgetting about Microsoft BOB.
I was also under the impression that both the Amiga and Atari ST(E) could do 3D, and that was with their built-in graphics capabilities. I doubt it would take so long for the Amiga to go 3D when you consider that it was doing 3D things (the juggler) from the beginning.
Really, I think Microsoft succeeded because they were picked by IBM and thus got a lot of exposure/money to start off with. And people (and businesses) picked IBM because a lot of people only took microcomputers seriously when IBM started making them.
I was also under the impression that both the Amiga and Atari ST(E) could do 3D, and that was with their built-in graphics capabilities. I doubt it would take so long for the Amiga to go 3D when you consider that it was doing 3D things (the juggler) from the beginning.
I don’t recall the built-in graphics on the Amiga having 3D capabilities, I was under the impression the 3D effects were either pseudo 3D or done in software. And yes I did play Doom on my Amiga, but that doesn’t mean the 3D was done by the graphics chipset.
Microsoft did contribute to the computer industry, but it is crazy to assume that there weren’t fifty companies waiting to take their place if they had failed.
There was a lot of great stuff back then. Let’s assume that Apple and Commodore were fighting for the market: Apple would have been pressured to improve their product’s multitasking capabilities. Atari would have been nipping at their heels just on the merits of price. Seeming as all of them used the same processor, Atari may have even provided a software compatibility environment which would have allowed Amiga and Macintosh users to run Atari applications (thus encouraging developers to develop for the Atari instead). And those are just the big names. There were a whole slew of small companies too. Competition would have kept the market alive.
Atari wouldn’t be here anyway, the were already on the decline as a personal computer company when MS-DOS was on the rise.
Without MS, there wouldn’t have been an uber-monopoly to be the big bad guy that in our world now forces all the non-MS-shill companies to cooperate under the banners of open source and open standards.
Then again, it’s also quite possible the world would be essentially the same, only s/Microsoft/IBM/ and s/Windows/OS2/Warp/.
Though I think IBM would’ve completely missed the Netscape train, and they would be a very powerful company right now, along with Sun — I bet we’d all be talking about how sweetly beautiful AWT apps look.
>Without MS, there wouldn’t have been an uber-monopoly to
>be the big bad guy that in our world now forces all the
>non-MS-shill companies to cooperate under the banners of
>open source and open standards.
Except… Richard Stallman has been supporting GNU for twenty years, even before MS was an uber-monopoly.
It’s ironic… Sometimes I think Open Source has a better chance with MS on top as opposed to, say, Apple. It seems to me like Apple is even more proprietary-minded than MS, and with their product quality I imagine they’d’ve had a more stable monopoly than MS does.
You might think that, but Apple is the one giving back to the Development community. Microsoft offers you exclusive membership into their “Club”, while Apple gives you all the tools you want.
Both sets of tools are proprietary to the OS, however, Apple doesn’t wish to exclude the other 98% of the computing world. Microsoft does.
Microsoft wants it all, and under their flag alone; under the threat of litigation, license costs, and in the official language.
Apple wants it all, but they’d like to see it done properly, and they know if they give people the means to do so on their own terms, the product will end up in the shape of their corporate logo – out of deference.
Malevolent Dictatorship vs. Benevolent Monarch
I bet if I worshipped the ground Microsoft walked on I’d find it funny.. Since when does Microsoft get credit for TCP/IP being the standard for networking, and ethernet winning out in intranets?
Browsers based off Mosaic? Hello, Netscape was a far cry from Mosaic after working on the code for 6 years (back in 1998).
And Microsoft is somehow responsible for commodity PC parts? Riiiiiight. That’s certainly not because IBM let everyone build knock offs by opening up BIOS.
And no one could decide on a 3D standard? *sigh*
You can’t buy cheap hard drives? Holy cow. I’ve got a sense of humor, but humor has to be based in some form of reality… You can’t just make stuff up!
But the worst of all is the idea that we’d still be using CP/M based stuff if Microsoft didn’t exist… Yea, Microsoft, the company that still ships a shell with native commands from CP/M…
‘eh, ibm didnt really open up the BIOS. compaq reverse engineered it
Since when does Microsoft get credit for TCP/IP being the standard for networking
Since they stole it from BSD and implemented it in Windows, of course!!
I had a nice chuckle. Only fifteen percent, huh? lol I think it be higher than that.
So many of you missed it. Your getting hanged up on who invented what. That has almost zero to do with this. Note in this world the article didn’t say there were no GUIs, just IBM doesn’t have one.
MS didn’t have to invent anything. What MS did was come out with something (with the help of IBM) that caught a big foothold.
PC (IBM+MS+Compaq reverse engineering bios) Caused a standardized platform to happen that got the whole ball of wax rolling towards were it is today. Take MS out of the equation, it might have all just flopped (we will never know).
But anyways, once it got a foothold, smaller players slowly died, MS grew along with the PC, more volume on a common platform, thus cheaper, snow ball effect happens, things get cheaper and cheaper, thus normal people own computers, thus more market share thus more cheaper hardware and so forth. Furthermore it caused there to be one target Developers could aim towards to cut there cost, and focus development thus reduce product cost. So in time there was a market for the internet, thus internet boom and so forth.
Competition does not make stuff cheaper. Commonality does, along with mass production. If there were 10 computer makers with 10% of the market a piece, their volume would be lower, thus prices higher, therefore market grows much much slower. Which is what this guy was saying. Things were progressing, just much slower. Which is what happens when there is no standard.
The same situation we have today could have happened if apple had been able to break through to a dominate market share. Of course compaq would have reversed engineering macs too.
Rarely does the person who invented something come out the winner. It’s the person who leveraged it, or came around second or 3rd with the idea and worked out the bugs of the first person. MS just pulled off these concepts better then others. MS didn’t invent the internet, they weren’t even quick on embracing it, but when they did, they took over. And they tend to do that in anything they ever do. Where they first in the PDA/Embedded market, no, but where are they now? Where they first in the desktop market, no, but where are they now? Where they first in the server market, heck no, but where have the been heading? and so forth. They come to the game late and come up with a combo that is the best fit for people and run with it.
Be might have been able to take over. But they missed the opportunity of getting investors to come up with a giant ball of cash for them to be able to go to OEMs and get them to break there MS deals and come up with a better deal and dump a ton of money in the OS to have it crush Windows. They in theory could have, but they didn’t.
MS deal with OEMs may be evil, but from a business perspective it’s pure genius. No one else tried hard enough to beat them at that game.
And If MS didn’t exist, someone else would have done the same. So we would be in the same place, just different “evil” company. The free market people talk about is what created MS. Others had their chance, and they blew it. And now the door is shut for the most part. Same as any other industry. Want to create the next mega car company? good luck, just try to get into that market. But if you got say few billion bucks, you might be able to. No ones stopping you.
Same for OS’s if someone wanted to dethrone MS, they could. But it’s going to take a ton of money to develop a killer OS, then pay all the hardware companies to support it, plus make sweet deals with all the needed software companies to support it, then a ton to market it, and probably a ton of money to get OEMs to go to it. Linux will never be able to take over because it doesn’t have the money to take over. Things like hardware support have to come from the hardware companies, not random people hacking drivers. Apps can’t come from random people making random apps, that are similar to what people use in Windows or on their Mac.
I think you can argue both ways — Microsoft encouraged lower prices by allowing hardware companies to have economies of scale or that prices would be lower with more competition. I personally think that tech would have moved forwared more quickly with more competition but I’m also sure that a lot of computer components would have been standardized between platforms.
MS didn’t have to invent anything. What MS did was come out with something (with the help of IBM) that caught a big foothold.
Actually what MS did was keep control of their product so that they could sell it to others, instead of ceding control of it to IBM.
That is why it was worthwhile for Compaq and others to reverse-engineer the IBM’s BIOS and create their clones. If Apple had become dominant, no such reverse-engineering would have occured because the same company had control over the hardware and the software.
Exactly what i was thinking while reading the comments.
I think that microsoft did a good thing by combining all these technologies together that they bought and developed. It allowed for normal day to day home users to be able to do something on the computer. It allowed for the gaming company to boom like it has because they only have to target one platform.
Now with that said I will say what you are thinking. I am a huge supporter of Microsoft. Now I do think it is time for other people to shine. Microsoft has done their part for the world of computing, and we are on to a new revolution. Big things are on the rise to help out the computer industry, and i know MS will have an effect but it will be someone else to push us throgh the next 30 years.
OSNews would never be filtering for M $.
So let me get this straight, according to this fool’s logic we would have been better off if Ford made 95% of the cars in America rather than today’s current competitive landscape?
In every other industry, cars, clothes, electronics, whatever, competition produces better products at a lower cost. So, why would that theory go to pieces if Microsoft didn’t become a monopoly?
Thus my conclusion that the author has been duped my the MS FUD machine. I suppose he really does believe that we would all still be using the command line if MS hadn’t saved us all. What a crock of shit.
I think the writer of this article spent a little too much time around his altar to Microsoft before writing the article, it gives the company far too much credit and paints a primitive picture of what a world would look like without Microsoft.
If Microsoft hadn’t been around Apple and other companies would have still brought computers into homes, in fact it’s my impression that without Apple the world would be far worse than without Windows since if Apple hadn’t shown IBM that home users wanted to buy computers too then IBM would have stuck to selling workstations, servers and terminals to companies.
Microsoft did have an effect on computers, and a very large one at that, but without Microsoft it’s my opinion that computers would still be as good today and we would also have more companies and products still around. Many of Microsoft’s products including Dos and Visual Basic were actually started by different companies and then purchased by Microsoft.
I won’t make the outrageous claim that the world would be a better place without Microsoft, but I will say that everyone saying the world would be worse without MS is simply throwing their opinion around as if it were fact. Computers existed and did what was needed of them before Microsoft, and would have continued to do so without Microsoft in my opinion. Personally I think the same key software would also have been released and could possibly even have been better since many MS products were originally from other companies.
Microsoft has been good as well as bad throughout its history, so I don’t yet regret that things didn’t turn out differently. I don’t use many Microsoft products today, but that’s because I prefer to use open source software instead of buying meere licenses for commercial software. My decision is based on the idealism of open source, not any particular dislike for Microsoft.
Too many articles are nothing more than textual representations of people’s hatred or worship of Microsoft, especially speculative pieces like this one.
Nice one:-)
Where would the Amiga be in terms of advancement, if Commodore was still around? One of the best R+D departments that ever existed. Without Microsoft!
then Netscape would have ruled the world !!
If Microsoft never existed Bill Gates would not of been the richest guy in the world.