Remove Windows from the market. Done.

This is going to hurt third party anit-virus badly.

Seriously? Really? I doubt it, mainly because it can be easily said that the third-party anti-virus companies are doing a good job of this themselves. Have you ever used the c*** that is called Symantec Anti-Virus? Everyone I know would rather get the Swine flu then use that.

First, IE kills Netscape.

Hey, let's give some credit where it's due. Netscape did one h*** of a job killing itself as much as MS did. The second someone said "I know! Let's take our kick-a** browser, and bloat it up with a bunch of other features and call it Netscape Communicator! That's what will put us over the top!", the first nail went into their coffin.

Second, Zune kills other MP3 players.

Wait? Are we being sarcastic in this post? Oh c***. No, because IE killed Netscape. And everyone here hates the Zune. I have no idea what we're going for.

Now, it's anit-virus software. In the future, the first Microsoft built computers.

Yep, your train of thought jumped the tracks.

seriously now ol' bean, you should do some homework! we go over and over this yet you don't seem to be grasping it at all.

the sad part is that apologists like yourself have no idea how ms got where they are. it's sad you don't know and it's sad what they did to get there. please ol' sport, do some homework.

there's a bit of revisionist history isn't it? read my post to luck, go do some homework.

I'm quite aware how MS became big. They signed a sweet-heart deal with IBM to allow them to keep the rights to MS-DOS, and when clones came, they were waiting.

After that, it was hacking together crappy software like windows 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, etc., all of which was 'good enough' (well, 3.0 wasn't, and don't get people started on Me), and while spreading FUD about competitors ended up dethroning the likes of Novell (which I can't believe anyone liked - it was painful to set up and maintain, perfect for the console geek but little else).

But don't yourself be naive. MS made a ton because of the deals for Windows with PC builders. But do you seriously think that Linux would have taken off by now if it weren't for the strong-arming? Certainly not. It's finally reached a stage where you could use it for your home system. Certainly none of this affected Apple, since they have generally been a closed shop (except for the years of the clones), so it wasn't like Dell ever had any real option.

Apple did a really good job s******* up their market with overpriced hardware, bad decision-making, horrible decision-making, and the technical inability to modernize the OS. Seriously, even in the year 2000, the Mac OS had cooperative multitasking and partitioned memory slots. (h***, it took years to get people to stop whining on how their 'free' memory in OS X kept disappearing).

Please direct me to the statement that I made that was incorrect.

Well, you're partially correct on the history. But I think the point that Nat was making was that, had they not done their FUD and strong-arm tactics, IBM and Novell (Digital Research) would have both emerged as DOS competitors, and we would have perhaps seen OS/2 become mainstream to an extent.

So it's not just Apple or Linux. They may have had some more marketshare, but we would have a lot more choice on the "PC" side, where there would possibly be room for not just one, but maybe two or three competitive products.

I believe OS/2 was a great OS, which was killed directly by Microsoft and their tactics. This is partially true of Linux as well. This is entirely true of Office suites as well. They even strong-armed IBM into not shipping Lotus Suite, and WordPerfect.

Microsoft's nasty business tactics have had very far-reaching outcomes in today's computer industry for the worse.

By the way, the Zune/MP3 thing was directed at all the partners for "Plays for Sure" which you were a big fan of (evident from all your posts). With the Zune, they literally killed the Creative, Diamond and all the little guys who were supposedly partners. The only one that survived was Sandisk (barely). So while it didn't hurt Apple, it did hurt a lot of other companies.

""I know! Let's take our kick-a** browser, and bloat it up with a bunch of other features and call it Netscape Communicator! "

Oh, Gawd, I remember that. What a pos.

I was an avid user and an OS/2 road rep back in the day. IBM did far more to kill OS/2 then MS ever did.

It was like IBM threw some people out on the street to hype OS/2 and did a little marketing the summer before Windows 95 hit and then they just flat out quit. I do not blame MS for that. The direction for OS/2 was never clear from IBM.

They also never really offered any real incentive to develop on OS/2. You read any of IBM's literature from back then and it becomes apparent that the only real thing they were trying to communicate to end users was that OS/2 ran DOS and Windows better than MSDos and MS windows. That was not enough to tip the scales. The native OS/2 applications never showed up (at least not the killer ones)

I was not shocked to see OS/2 die after IBM's half @ssed attempts at making the OS mainstream.

Good memories though, what an awesome operating system for its time!