Back in the 90s there were multiple companies offering competing

R1C1

Building monopolies and sabotaging competition. Man, wasn't that easy.

P4 was some ass and you know it.

>>59439574
>Back in the 90s there were multiple companies offering competing business software.
There is still competing business software. Apple makes its own productivity suite for example, and forces their vendors to use it (I used to work for one). And again there are still plenty of operating systems and processor manufacturers such as POWER, SPARC and ARM.

>What happened?
You're retarded and know nothing about computing.

>>59439574
IBM could've had it with OS/2
If they did get it with OS/2 though, would they have the same amount of force in the FOSS world as they have now?

>>59439574
Microsoft ate all the competition and the ones with enough cash on bank followed Microsoft lead either with the "Designed for Microsoft Windows" or with similar practices in others fields. The "representative" government whom had one simple task failed again. Trowing all the competition driven innovations to the trash.

>>59439782
>and forces their vendors to use it (I used to work for one).
What the fuck do you mean "their vendors" and who are being forced to use it? Do you even know what "vendor" means?

>>59439574
>What happened?
Computing matured, hardware got faster, and systems became more connected. Things naturally consolidated.

All those competing office suites effectively accomplished the same job while mangling competing formats and making working in non-homogeneous environments a fucking pain. It's fun enough in the age of Libre/OpenOffice and MSO, now imagine dealing with MSO vs. SmartSuite vs. StarOffice vs. ClarisWorks vs. Perfect Office and so on. It's a waste of time for little gain.

Same goes for most operating systems and hardware platforms, the only people who benefited from a dead-end platform with no developer support were the executives laughing their way to the bank with your hard-earned money after cutting their losses and closing out/selling after a few years in business.

Diversity is a fun thing to think about, and early computing is fascinating to study, read about and collect examples of, but when it comes to actually getting the job done, it fucking sucked.

>>59439782
>You're retarded and know nothing about computing.
It's funny coming from someone who calls SPARC, POWER and ARM "processor manufacturers"

File: 5c4b466f59edb4ef60ec1851a93907ea[1].jpg (29KB, 500x500px) Image search: [Google]

29KB, 500x500px

>>59439782
>processor manufacturers such as POWER, SPARC and ARM