True there were better operating systems, but people didn't have the education to run them and couldn't afford the equipment to. MSFT took the hardware "monopoly" and ran with it. Apple was late to the game with a real business computer. And then once the IBM clones started, it was all over for Apple other than a niche product.
MSFT has been late to the game a lot, but used it's expertise in selling and creating monopolies to catch up. OS/2 was a far superior OS then Win95, but MSFT bullied IBM into pretty much not promoting it. And one key thing MSFT had done was have per CPU licenses with the manufacturers. They had to pay MSFT for every CPU they sold wether there was a MSFT OS on the computer or not. Made it hard for anybody else to get their foot in the door. Remember DR DOS?
And MSFT used the changing of the file formats to force everybody into upgrading. Hood winked everybody into thinking it was new knowledge they needed and kept the competition a step behind. The FUD is no longer working so you noticed they've gone to licenses that go by time and not product. Even that's starting to crumble.
The knowledge, and implied knowledge that MSFT is selling is no longer worth what it use to be. People are becoming more educated consumers and aren't falling for the FUD any more. And you'll notice IBM decided a few years back do and end run around MSFT and is now fully endorsing Linux.
One thing I've been wondering about the ORCL bid for PSFT, JDEC is in the IBM camp. If JDEC and PSFT merge, that puts PSFT in the IBM camp. Makes it all that much harder for ORCL to compete against IBM.
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