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You could influence Windows by buying a Mac instead. And arguably that has happened. Before OS X started taking off, Windows Longhorn was about trying to do object oriented filesystems and other stuff. It ended up as Vista, with semi-transparent window borders.

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Really interesting perspective. In this example, external competition created a worse product than if they were left as a stagnating monopoly?

Before OS X the Windows team were hardly focused on the UI at all. OO filesystems weren't going anywhere. At least Vista shipped and had some new features.

> OO filesystems weren't going anywhere.

Really? Have we forgotten Smalltalk machines so quickly?

Smalltalk machines?

The question is not did we forget, but who had anything to remember about them in the first place?

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