It took years before multimedia took off—even though Bill Gates started pushing for it when Microsoft went public in 1986 (first CD-ROM Conference): > we were

It took years before multimedia took off—even though Bill Gates started pushing for it when Microsoft went public in 1986 (first CD-ROM Conference): > we were pushing the idea of multimedia back in 1986 that didn't really catch on, you could say, until 1994 so before it was in the mainstream. According to Randall E. Stross, not everyone saw CD-ROM's rise as a medium either: https://books.google.com/books?id=jrKwMK3raXoC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=microsoft+cd+rom+conference&source=bl&ots=BxeKzRdm6O&sig=qWPVw6GWZvcPpj8Wflv7y3O9NCs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7qO_1kePOAhVHymMKHQswAcYQ6AEILjAH#v=onepage&q=microsoft%20cd%20rom%20conference&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=jrKwMK3raXoC&pg=PA71&lpg=P... According to Stross above, even though Mac was technically advance, Sculley & Apple (Jobs left in 85'), missed out on the CD-ROM evolution as a trojan horse into the Home market (so did Manzi & Lotus). Microsoft (Robert Glaser) worked with PC, chips, and manufactures and faced many hurdles. I guess the breakthrough came when 486 came out. As a teenager the mid-nineties, I remember how CD-ROM was this huge leap from floppy disks & cassettes—that's almost 8+ years after the first CD-ROM Conference. Right when CD-ROM is in full swing (1994), another medium was taking shape. The pace of format evolution picked up after that; from CD-ROM & multimedia to the Internet & multimedia—was something that definitely left Microsoft in the wake and gave rise to a sleuth of other powerhouse. Looking back now, how Steve Jobs bet on MP3 and the Internet as another trojan horse into the Home market (for hand-held devices) makes everything comes full circle—took a page from Microsoft—no wonder why Gates was impressed. * EDIT: grammatical & add commentary on 486