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MS, in turn, just did the software and let everyone else figure out the hardware. Microsoft had nothing to do with the openness of the PC architecture. By the

by geoka9 14y ago

MS, in turn, just did the software and let everyone else figure out the hardware. Microsoft had nothing to do with the openness of the PC architecture. By the time MS had any influence, the PC market had already been well established with several manufacturers churning out PC clones. It was the cheap PC hardware that resulted from the evolution of the PC around the MS software... Isn't it the other way around? At least in the beginning, the MS software seemed to evolve around advances in the PC hardware. At some point Microsoft probably got enough leverage to influence the process, but another company (or a consortium of companies) would have probably got to do that if MS had not been around.

userulluipeste 14y ago
"Microsoft had nothing to do with the openness of the PC architecture." Actually, it does! You've mentioned Microsoft leverage - it could have been used a lot more Apple-like way, to impose a "Microsoft Application Store" or something, to racket every software company, to pillage every developer with "rights to develop" licences and to take "it's rightful cut" from every product sold on Windows. All those could induce a strong feeling of closeness. Yet, all those didn't happened under Microsoft rule. Those "goodies" we come to enjoy first-hand only in the great Apple garden! "...another company (or a consortium of companies) would have probably got to do that if MS had not been around." I am glad it wasn't Apple or another one with an Apple-like vision. It would have been a curse on the computing industry.