>>>I know that they revolutionized consumer products, but since the first Mac how have they influenced business computing?
>>
>>without Apple there would be no Windows!
>
>Are you sure of that?
>Yes, the Windows interface looks an awful lot like the Mac's and the Mac preceded Windows, but both of them look an awful lot like the Xerox Parc.
>So it's pretty certain that Apple didn't copy from Ms, but it's not certain that Ms copied from Apple.
>
>What is also certain is that the guys at Xerox Parc blew a fortune by not copyrighting the mouse and that interface.

Apple paid Xerox for a look at the technology developed at PARC (stands for Palo Alto Research Center). "Opening the kimono" was the way Steve Jobs described it. The agreement did not preclude Xerox from developing and selling their own computers, and they developed one called the Star. Unfortunately for them, they weren't very good at selling it.