BeOS seemed like a very cool experiment but from what I've heard it was sunk by its own faults, most especially from being nearly impossible to develop for.
Hardly. I was a part of the developer program, and for the time, it was a dream to develop for. Because of the pervasive multithreading, development was a little bit more complicated, but the BeAPI was lovely, and very forward-thinking. And the benefits of the multithreaded architecture were immediately apparent to anyone who did even elementary development.
What killed BeOS was Microsoft strong-arming PC manufacturers to not allow BeOS as an option. Be had Hitachi and Compaq lined up for dual booting and an internet appliance, respectively. Microsoft used their OEM program to get them to go back on the deals.
BeOS alone is one reason I will never forgive the anti-competitive, monopolistic tactics of 90's Microsoft.
Be (the company) offered to give BeOS away for free to any OEM, but none would touch it... because the contracts with Microsoft at the time meant they had to pay a Windows license for every machine sold, even if BeOS and (not Windows) was installed on it.
That, not the whole Internet Explorer tangent, was the thing that ticked me off the most. The thought that any money for the Intel box I bought to run NeXTSTEP went to Microsoft was unbelievable. If the gov had put a stop to that one practice earlier, it would have been a different game.
What killed BeOS was Microsoft strong-arming PC manufacturers to not allow BeOS as an option. Be had Hitachi and Compaq lined up for dual booting and an internet appliance, respectively. Microsoft used their OEM program to get them to go back on the deals.
BeOS alone is one reason I will never forgive the anti-competitive, monopolistic tactics of 90's Microsoft.