This began as a reaction to the success of Windows, but was reinforced with the failure of every integrated hardware product that failed in its wake, including the Acorn Archimedes, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga and BeBox. Apple's Macintosh was the only non-Windows PC to survive the decade, but the company was still labeled "beleaguered" for daring to remain in business.
The notion that an integrated PC wouldn't and couldn't sell without Windows even caused Apple's 1990s leadership to pursue Windows-like licensing programs, first with the Newton OS and then with the Mac OS in 1995.
Other companies also tried to introduce broadly licensed Windows alternatives, most notably IBM'sOS/2, but also Sun's Solaris and Steve Jobs' NeXTSTEP for Intel PCs.
Nobody was willing to question the idea that the only way to sell an operating system was Microsoft's Windows Way, despite the fact that nobody was really able to successfully copy Microsoft either.
It seemed that nobody was willing to question the idea that the only way to sell an operating system was Microsoft's Windows Way, despite the fact that nobody was really able to successfully copy Microsoft either.
In reality, Microsoft didn't happen upon the True Way to sell technology. It simply won by cheating, erecting a monopoly where nobody else could actually play. Software alternatives were locked out of the market by illegal tying agreements, while Microsoft's hardware "partners" were duped (for decades!) into funneling most of their profits to Microsoft.
This continued for so long in large part because the tech media overwhelmingly refused to judge the PC game as impartial journalists and instead largely assumed the role of Microsoft flatterers, weaving rich tapestries of prose to glorify the Windows Empire's fine New Clothes.
Technology shifts, but the world refuses to notice
The technology world was so thoroughly convinced that Microsoft's Windows was the One And Only Way to sell computing that nearly everyone refused to observe or consider the accumulating data conflicting with this "common sense" opinion.
The first evidence that broadly licensed software wasn't necessarily a superior model for selling technology came from parallel efforts to be like Microsoft: IBM, Apple, Sun and NeXT all failed to replicate the Windows model with their own licensing programs.
Even more persuasive should have been the clearly observable inability of Microsoft to spread Windows Everywhere. A string of Windows failures that began early in the 1990s was carefully excused and ignored by the tech media in its collective refusal to be anything but an extension of Microsoft's PR department.
From Windows for Pen to WinPad to Windows Handheld PC to Windows Palm-sized PC and Pocket PC to "Windows Powered" (and other Windows CE initiatives including Mira Smart Displays and Media2Go/PlaysForSure/Zune and Windows Mobile/Windows Phone) to Windows Tablets, Slate PC and UltraMobile PCs, Microsoft's every effort to duplicate its Windows PC model in new product segments or form factors simply fell flat on its face.
Palm proves Windows doesn't work: 2003-2007
A third experiment testing the supremacy of broadly licensing a technology came in the early 2000s, when Palm's PDA business began to falter, much like Apple had a decade previously. Palm's situation was nearly identical to Apple's in the early 1990s: it had a popular integrated product saddled with aging system software and an increasingly obsolete CPU architecture.
Everyone offered the company the same advice they'd offered Apple, invariably recommending that it split its hardware and software businesses, broadly license out its software like Microsoft, and perhaps even license Windows from Microsoft.
After briefly duplicating many aspects of Apple's turnaround strategy being accomplished in parallel under Steve Jobs (Palm even brought back its own founder, Jeff Hawkins, in a move to enter the new smartphone market being pioneered by Hawkins' Handspring Treos), the company then shifted to a Windows Enthusiast game plan.
That proved disastrous. Licensing Palm OS briefly appeared to work (Palm even signed up Sony as an enthusiastic partner) but soon failed; Sony backed out by 2004. Splitting the company into hardware (palmOne) and software (PalmSource) created confusion and support headaches for customers, with no clear benefits.
Licensing Windows Mobile from Microsoft and selling that alongside its own Palm OS created even more confusion, and resulted in a slashing of Palm's own installed base. But it wasn't Microsoft's Windows licensing that finally killed Palm: it was an integrated device: Apple's iPhone.
Apple proves integrated products can work: 1997-2007
A decade prior to the release of the iPhone, Apple began a turnaround under Jobs that refocused the company on doing the unthinkable: selling integrated products in a Windows-dominated world. Among Jobs' first decisions were the termination of Apple's Newton and Mac OS licensing programs.
Jobs then focused Apple on doing something that nobody else in the PC business was doing: creating innovative, tightly integrated packages of hardware and software.
Source : Appleinsider
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