>>>http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/06/07/the-xbox-one-might-let-sonys-ps4-win-by-default/
>>>
>>>Win8 (forced interface). Win8RT (useless). Windows Phone (awful marketing), Vista (speaks for itself)... and the hits keep coming.
>>>
>>>Microsoft truly is the IBM of the 80's.
>>
>>Right idea, wrong decade. IBM was shovelling in money from its mainframe business during the 1980's.
>
>I'm talking about the PC business. They decided that PS/2, OS/2, and MicroChannel were what they would force on the market in the late 80's (while making apps that checked for the architecture). They didn't have Apple's marketing and legal engines so it didn't work.
>
>Microsoft is still winning by default (no other real choices). I think Apple may be able to force the entire PC market using their marketing and legal engines if no real alternatives show up to play (no - Linux isn't it).
>
>Microsoft has already shot itself too many times and will fall - it's just a question of what replaces it.
>
>>They still do, by the way.
>>Their PC strategy came unglued during the 90's till they finally got out of the PC and printer markets.

FWIW I took your message the same way Bill did, as referring to IBM's dominance in the mainframe market. There was a saying that they weren't the competition, they were the environment. That dominance never extended to the PC market, even though the IBM PC did legitimatize microcomputers in the business community. PC software was dominated by all kinds of other players (Lotus, Ashton-Tate, WordPerfect, and of course Microsoft). On the hardware side Compaq and others were quickly nipping at their heels. All that said, I agree with your point that Microsoft seems to be repeating IBM's example -- losing dominance by being slow to react to a changing market.