I don't think there really was an API war. What happened to what Joel considers "Microsoft's crown strategic jewel", the Windows API, was also largely irrelevan

I don't think there really was an API war. What happened to what Joel considers "Microsoft's crown strategic jewel", the Windows API, was also largely irrelevant. Microsoft's real problem was they spent far too long pouring resources into preparing for an enemy that never really arrived. Imagine instead if they had spent the last ten years pouring resources into keeping IE, Hotmail, and internet search, as cutting edge products. It's kinda mind-blowing to think what the world might look like today if Microsoft hadn't basically surrendered these markets at the turn of the century.