Blah blah. Trotting out this tired old chestnut again? Yes, things might have been very different. If they'd done it early enough, Apple could have been a tired, clueless license-humper like Microsoft. They could have won the market share wars and never produced another great product. Or, since Microsoft would have done their copycat anyway, they might have lost the market share wars and still never produced a great product. Not an alternative history I want to live in.
"Blah blah. Trotting out this tired old chestnut again?"
Well excuse me for featuring something you've apparently read far too often. Believe it or not, some people haven't seen it all.
The title is misleading, phrased as if present-tense, when this is a letter from 1985.