[dtech]

It was certainly dominant at the time, but not for that long, mostly early 90's. The decades before saw - by today's standards - rapid switching of dominant home, business and server hardware and corresponding OSses.

So it was not a safe bet in 1996 that Windows and Microsoft would still exist and be a big market player in 2020.

[mijoharas]

> So it was not a safe bet in 1996 that Windows and Microsoft would still exist and be a big market player in 2020.

There's an argument they're not. Now obviously windows still dominates the laptop (and desktop) OS market (and I'm not gonna claim Microsoft is doing badly or anything), but it isn't the dominant overall OS due to the rise of mobile and Android.

At wave of computing so far, from mainframes to minicomputers, from minicomputers to PCs and from PCs to mobile, the dominant market leader has been unseated. If viewed in this light, Warren's reticence is prescient.

[Kronen]

You can say the same for 2040 then...

[dtech]

For Windows you can, but Microsoft is diversifying risks and running their software on other OS and hardware, and Office is a major windows-independent revenue stream.

So I'd say 2020 -> 2040 Microsoft is a safer bet than 1996 -> 2016 Microsoft.

[ralfd]

I think it is riskier. Microsoft in 1997 had virtually no competitors. That is not the case anymore.