One clarification Rude,
"At that time, MSFT had 100% of the market, just like solaris on
sparc, IBM on AS400, etc."
Right from the beginning, MSFT did not have 100% of the market. DR-DOS was there in the old days as well. The reason MSFT's version of DOS became the defacto standard in the industry was because of the last industry controller of a Monopoly - IBM - selected MS-DOS to be the OS used on their PCs. That meant DR-DOS was doomed!
Likewise in the early days of Windows, MSFT was competing with GeoWorks. Remember them? Following is a quick summary of MSFT Windows' initial competitor....
"Geoworks is a preemptive multitasking operating system with a user interface similar to those of Microsoft Windows or the
Macintosh. Like the earlier versions of Windows it is a DOS extension. Unlike Windows, it also runs on older machines (like
PC/XT) with little RAM (640K required).
After its introduction, it promised to be a real alternative to MS-Windows, but due to the fact that no Windows applications
could be run under Geoworks and the lack of commercial programs, it could never assert itself against Microsoft Windows.
Included in the Geoworks ensemble package is a word processor, a drawing program, limited desktop publishing capabilities,
Tetris and Solitaire games, communications software, and a variety of extras for file management and customisaton of the
interface. Support for a large number of printers and mice is also included, and Geoworks provides automatic access to all
DOS and Netware drives."
End of History Lesson.
Toy |
