7 was a success, but mostly it was "Vista with the rough edges ironed out and more time for hardware to catch up". Ditto for 8 and 8.1. So I think it's based on

7 was a success, but mostly it was "Vista with the rough edges ironed out and more time for hardware to catch up". Ditto for 8 and 8.1. So I think it's based on a real phenomenon, where Microsoft was basically unintentionally doing the "move fast and break things" of modern software development, minus the fast part.