On Monday, 6 January 2014 10:21:23 UTC, Tim Streater wrote:

"The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to
lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores
the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them
into it in the first place." - Douglas Adams

How long ago was that written?

Bill's best beat IBM at IBM. GNU was a loner's wet dream and Linux wasn't even a twinkle. Then Windows became a monopoly and the Gate knew just how to work a monopoly.

Apple could have made a rival but their business plan was to replicate IBM not do a software. Software became a part of the product because Jobs had superb writers working at bottom dollar rates and he could always get more of them