Microsoft did everything, like everything and more, to kill every alternative platform on the planet. Hedging their bets with half-hearted posix support was part of that effort.
If not for that MSN vs Internet fiasco, they would succeed.
If not for that MSN vs Internet fiasco, they would succeed.
Also as seen nowadays by many FAANG efforts, "do no evil" marketing stunts, Playstation and Nintendo with their exclusive deals, they are not alone in the desire to achieve that goal.
Ironically, while UNIX won the server room, the Linux wars replacing the UNIX wars, is kind of what killed the desktop for most consumers, now enjoying the Linux kernel via Android, ChromeOS, and the free beer version of them, versus what OEMs make available isn't the same anyway.
Or one pays what is seen as the Apple tax in countries where wages aren't at the same level as North America.
So the non-desktop part was lost by Microsoft, and this resulted in the world we have now, Linux derivatives and all. But for a while, sometime around 1996-2006, it definitely felt like they almost had it. This is when I began my official dev career and that summer I could barely find a non-MS stack shop.
And yes, the OSS movement didn't manage to unify the desktop. And Microsoft has nothing to do with it.
I still like the landscape much better.