4 ms·

Windows won because DOS was already everywhere. It wasn't the best product. I would argue OS/2 and Macintosh were pretty significantly better. It's not a coinci

Windows won because DOS was already everywhere. It wasn't the best product. I would argue OS/2 and Macintosh were pretty significantly better. It's not a coincidence that it took this long (Windows 7) for MS to produce a decent operating system - they are now having to compete on quality. But you don't even have to buy the argument that Windows was sub-par. It doesn't matter, because that's not why MS won. Just as MS used the omnipresent Windows platform to push Office, IE, and countless other products (with varying success) they used DOS to push Windows. That is why Windows won. There's nothing dodgy about it - the point is there is more than one way to win the market, and being the best product is pretty far down on the list.

jimbobimbo 16y ago
>Windows won because DOS was already everywhere. Actually previous poster made a good point with Vista problems - after a few years of bad press and Apple being a favorite, MS made a killing with Windows 7. Not for free.
revorad 16y ago
Of course, Microsoft used DOS to push Windows and perhaps OS/2 was better in some ways, but the Wikipedia article suggests OS/2 lost because Windows was better in some important ways. The collaboration between IBM and Microsoft unraveled in 1990, between the releases of Windows 3.0 and OS/2 1.3. Initially, at least publicly, Microsoft continued to insist the future belonged to OS/2. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft even took to calling OS/2 "Windows Plus".[9] However, during this time, Windows 3.0 became a tremendous success, selling millions of copies in its first year.[10] Much of its success was because Windows 3.0 (along with MS-DOS) was bundled with most new computers.[11] OS/2, on the other hand, was only available as an expensive stand-alone software package. In addition, OS/2 lacked device drivers for many common devices such as printers, particularly non-IBM hardware.[12] Windows, on the other hand, supported a much larger variety of hardware. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2 The other question to consider is why another PC OS didn't come up to compete with DOS/Windows considering that Microsoft actually helped open up the hardware ecosystem. A dominant player with most of the "market share" need not stop a new better player (see web search). Maybe it's worth acknowledging that making a good OS is a hard problem which MS cracked better than the rest.
- slug 16y ago
  There were other PC DOS, but MS had something up their sleeve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS#Competition_from_Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS#Competition_from_Microso... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code
bad_user 16y ago
Windows won because DOS was already everywhere. It wasn't the best product. I would argue OS/2 and Macintosh were pretty significantly better. No, they weren't. The hardware requirements OS/2 were higher, Windows had better drivers support and provided better tools for developers. And the real battle was in '94 when IBM released OS/2 Warp. In '95 it was already game over. People weren't using OS/2 for the same reasons they wouldn't go for Win NT 4. It was technically superior, but incompatible with what people wanted. Win 95 had the same quality as Mac OS ... both were pieces of shit that got the job done, the difference being that you could get Win 95 for a better price and that it was future-proof (Win NT was already on sale for businesses). IMHO, with Windows Microsoft only had 2 fuckups ... Windows ME and Vista. For all the other versions Microsoft just provided what consumers wanted.
- ido 16y ago
  It seems a lot of people forget just how crummy mac os was before x. I used OS 7.x for a good while, and it was generally speaking not better than its contemporary, windows 95. In fact it might have been even worse, at least as far as multitasking and stability go. Windows 98 SE was actually a fairly good system as long as you didn't overtax its somewhat limited multi-tasking ability & ran it on high quality hardware (far less crash prone than Mac OS 8.x)

jimbobimbo 16y ago

>Windows won because DOS was already everywhere. Actually previous poster made a good point with Vista problems - after a few years of bad press and Apple being a favorite, MS made a killing with Windows 7. Not for free.

revorad 16y ago

Of course, Microsoft used DOS to push Windows and perhaps OS/2 was better in some ways, but the Wikipedia article suggests OS/2 lost because Windows was better in some important ways. The collaboration between IBM and Microsoft unraveled in 1990, between the releases of Windows 3.0 and OS/2 1.3. Initially, at least publicly, Microsoft continued to insist the future belonged to OS/2. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft even took to calling OS/2 "Windows Plus".[9] However, during this time, Windows 3.0 became a tremendous success, selling millions of copies in its first year.[10] Much of its success was because Windows 3.0 (along with MS-DOS) was bundled with most new computers.[11] OS/2, on the other hand, was only available as an expensive stand-alone software package. In addition, OS/2 lacked device drivers for many common devices such as printers, particularly non-IBM hardware.[12] Windows, on the other hand, supported a much larger variety of hardware. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2 The other question to consider is why another PC OS didn't come up to compete with DOS/Windows considering that Microsoft actually helped open up the hardware ecosystem. A dominant player with most of the "market share" need not stop a new better player (see web search). Maybe it's worth acknowledging that making a good OS is a hard problem which MS cracked better than the rest.

slug 16y ago
There were other PC DOS, but MS had something up their sleeve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS#Competition_from_Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS#Competition_from_Microso... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code

bad_user 16y ago

Windows won because DOS was already everywhere. It wasn't the best product. I would argue OS/2 and Macintosh were pretty significantly better. No, they weren't. The hardware requirements OS/2 were higher, Windows had better drivers support and provided better tools for developers. And the real battle was in '94 when IBM released OS/2 Warp. In '95 it was already game over. People weren't using OS/2 for the same reasons they wouldn't go for Win NT 4. It was technically superior, but incompatible with what people wanted. Win 95 had the same quality as Mac OS ... both were pieces of shit that got the job done, the difference being that you could get Win 95 for a better price and that it was future-proof (Win NT was already on sale for businesses). IMHO, with Windows Microsoft only had 2 fuckups ... Windows ME and Vista. For all the other versions Microsoft just provided what consumers wanted.

ido 16y ago
It seems a lot of people forget just how crummy mac os was before x. I used OS 7.x for a good while, and it was generally speaking not better than its contemporary, windows 95. In fact it might have been even worse, at least as far as multitasking and stability go. Windows 98 SE was actually a fairly good system as long as you didn't overtax its somewhat limited multi-tasking ability & ran it on high quality hardware (far less crash prone than Mac OS 8.x)