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by mattmaroon
5755 days ago
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Certainly porting happened, but the market was very fragmented. That was why Office was born in the first place. My bet for what would have happened: one of two things. 1. Either someone would have done much of the same things Microsoft did and you'd be complaining about them instead. Except maybe you wouldn't be complaining because nobody would have written this article because whoever benefited from it would have hoarded their money as most billionaires do rather than becoming the greatest philanthropist of all time. 2. Hacker News wouldn't exist for you to comment on, because computers would still be something you maybe used at work and that's about it. I don't think any other result is possible (and I don't think the 2nd is practical). Users simply aren't savvy enough to deal with fragmentation. You wouldn't have the web we know today without cheap home PCs anymore than you'd have man without the apes. |
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Office was never "born". Not even designed as a suite. It was cobbled together. Word and Excel were independent products developed originally for the Mac. PowerPoint was acquired and Access developed internally.
> Either someone would have done much of the same things Microsoft did
Striking a deal with IBM, retaining the rights to the OS and cooperating with OEMs so they could clone their client's hardware? It takes a devious mind to come up with a plan like this.
> because computers would still be something you maybe used at work and that's about it
I don't know about you, but I had a lot of fun with my Apple II. Bill Gates had nothing to do with the popularization of the home computer. In fact, he may something to do with the demise of the home computer of the 80's and its replacement by bulky, noisy, beige boxes with 12-inch CGA monitors running MS-DOS (a most home-unfriendly OS). My Apple II+ had 2 screens, one 14" white monochrome soft-switching between the motherboard video and the 80-column card and a 17" color TV directly connected to the motherboard composite output. Sadly, the IIe could not do the same trick (I used to have text on one screen and graphics on the second)