Came across this article from SmartMoney.com and nearly spit Starbucks out my nose. Check this quote:

IN 1995, MICROSOFT unleashed its breakthrough operating system, Windows 95, on an eager market.

Okay, that isn’t too bad. I mean “unleashed” would be the way I would describe it too. But check this action:

Windows 95 was a truly revolutionary product for PCs. Its robust new underlying code and its intuitive user interface finally gave PC users what Apple Computer devotees had always enjoyed — an easy-to-use operating system, free of DOS commands and work groups and all the other pains in the neck of previous systems.

Um, I don’t think you can call something “truly revolutionary” if it is “what Apple Computer devotees had always enjoyed” can you? And “robust unerlying code?” Besides is it even fair to compare Win95 and Mac OS? Windows kept that DOS prompt around till W2K from what I understand. And Apple did add a command line option till OS X.

Any old how, the gist of the article is that back when 95 came out the tech market sucked and PC sales were sagging. 95 hits the shelves and hardware sales soared. So, asks Monica Rivituso, the author, will XP do the same for PC sales in 2001? Well, if you remember, Big Billy of Redmond thought so and said it for the record a month or so ago. Come to think of it, I nearly nasally launched a mouthful of Starbucks back then too! Weird, huh?

Great post, Ahnyer.    I caught that article today as well, and was pretty amused.

I hadn’t thought about the contradiction between offering a revolutionary concept that was already being enjoyed elsewhere.  Very funny.

Ahnyer, this reminds me of when my cousin got a new PC a few months ago.  I came to help him set it up and we ran into some problems getting his old printer to work among other issues.  The computer wouldn’t shut down properly either.  He said he wished they made comupters that would just work.  Then he said “well, I guess Macs do, but…”.  As if they don’t count.

Do you remember those ad’s that Apple ran at the time? I saw the stickers plastered all over the place. It was something like:

“Windows ‘95 = Mac OS ‘89”

It made me giggle.

How true.  Windows 95 does seem like a copy of mac os.  It is ashame after all these years, they still can’t get it right.