[cwb]

How come no one talks about the loss of innovation Microsoft have incurred on the world? What if Windows were NeXT or Unix? What if Bill Gates had tried really hard to create the best tools possible, rather than the most profitable software? What if the world had run on Unix in the two decades since Tim Berners-Lee used a NeXT machine to create the web? Might we have had a 1% increase in annual productivity (mainly from better innovation, not only direct efficiency improvements)? We'll never know of course; but you don't have to be crazy to think so.

[zandorg]

Ted Nelson said the world of computing would be different if AT&T hadn't charged $50,000 for a Unix license (yes, that's per machine!).

[nitrogen]

One must remember that a single machine could serve many, many users via terminals.

[tzs]

Why are you blaming Microsoft for what IBM did? Microsoft's plan was for the world to run on Unix, with Microsoft selling Unix software--they wanted to be a tools and language company, and were tired of having every different manufacturer have its own operating system. Gates tried to get IBM to pick a processor for the IBM PC that would support Unix, but they weren't interested.

Your hypothetical 1% productivity increase has to be balanced against the productivity loss of dealing with a bunch of different Unix variants on a bunch of different processors. The dominance of Windows surely delayed innovation in operating systems, but arguably spurred innovation in applications.

[cwb]

Simply because I think they had the opportunity to create a great OS (whatever its relation to Unix) and chose not to. My point was that I think DOS/Windows hindered the innovation in applications -- not necessarily their complexity or size -- but their utility. I have the option to use big, feature-rich Windows applications, but mostly prefer smaller command-line based tools. I'm clearly in a minority here though, so maybe I am crazy.. :)