The "works everywhere" part is the original reason (developer mindshare grew from that). It's hard to fathom how big a chasm it was to cross for a truly cross-

The "works everywhere" part is the original reason (developer mindshare grew from that). It's hard to fathom how big a chasm it was to cross for a truly cross-platform open-standard GUI environment to reach critical mass such that every general purpose computer + OS must support it out of the box. It's not like Sun, Macromedia and Trolltech didn't take their shot, but these things need skin in the game from the OEM/OS side in order to succeed. It's the same structural advantages that ultimately loosened Microsoft's iron grip on profitable software in the early 00s.