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And Apple's success arguably isn't just a result of suddenly starting to execute well. It also took Microsoft giving them a golden opportunity by executing rather impressively poorly for a good long while. 1998 - 2009 was a tough time to be a Windows user.

I switched from PC to Mac for home use in about 2003. I liked OS X from day 1 (I worked the help desk at my college when it was released, so I had to learn it fairly deeply), but that alone probably wouldn't have been enough to entice me to make the switch, especially in light of how big the Apple tax was back then. I had also spent several years living with Windows Me and Windows XP, and I was probably switching away from them as much as I was switching toward a Mac.

> 1998 - 2009 was a tough time to be a Windows user

Is that true? I was too young to really have an opinion but to me most people cite XP and especially Windows 7(ignoring Vista which was bad) as the height of Windows. Of course outside of Windows, like mobile, it really was bad but if we’re just talking Windows then I can’t help but disagree.

XP had a very, very long run, and I think that people tend to mostly remember the time period when Vista was out but they were sticking to XP, which had stabilized pretty well by then. Recency bias and all that. Also, at this point it's easy to just be nostalgic for when Microsoft regarded Windows as an operating system rather than a vehicle for delivering advertisements to a captive audience.

The initial rollout, though, was frustrating for users who were beset by hardware and software compatibility issues, confused by a significantly altered user interface, and still experiencing the blue screens they had been told that XP would banish.

I was a bit young to have an opinion myself but in the early part of that, you had Windows 98, which had a pretty solid reputation, and Windows XP, whose brought the stability of NT to home users. Windows ME was poorly received but it wasn’t on the market for long before Windows XP came out.

Yeah, I think the decline of the Windows platform came a little later. Windows Me and Vista were crap, but 98SE was perfectly usable until XP came out, and XP was usable until 7 arrived. But, OS X and the Linux desktop made huge advances during that time period, vastly increasing the number of business software and gaming titles that would run well, so that by the 2010s, switching operating systems became a lot more viable for a lot more people. Especially with the rise of web-based applications in that time period, meaning many home users were no longer locked into a desktop client for things like email and office software.

I was a Mac user through those years and it wasn't roses during much of that time. In 1998, Microsoft had Windows 95/98 which didn't have the nice polish I loved from my Mac, but it was a modern OS running on much faster and cheaper hardware. Mac OS 8 was really good looking, but it wasn't a modern OS - cooperative multi-tasking and no separation between processes. Mac OS 9 didn't change that.

At the same time, Intel was just demolishing the PowerPC. You could get a much faster Windows PC for a third of the price. Yes, Apple has a price premium today, but it's marginal and you're usually getting better stuff. Back then the price differential was huge.

Things didn't get better fast. Windows XP gave home users Microsoft's NT OS while Mac OS X was so slow it was basically unusable. Windows apps would start up instantly while OS X would let you watch an icon keep bouncing in the dock. Intel kept pummeling PowerPC both on price and performance.

You started using OS X in 2003 so you never used 10.0 and 10.1, but it was painful. Even in 2003, performance was still slow and compatibility could be hard, but it was getting substantially better. More apps were fitting in with the OS by this time. A lot of the early ports from Mac OS Classic weren't very good and the UI elements didn't always look right.

OS X did give Apple a big advantage: it was a Unix with good laptop support. This brought a lot of techies to the platform. But it's hard to say that Microsoft wasn't doing well for most users at this time. Windows XP was so fast and the hardware was so cheap.

Microsoft did have some fumbles. Windows Me should never have been released. Windows XP had a lot of security issues for a while. But most people weren't even looking at Apple - until the iPod.

I think Apple's resurgence was their own doing. The iPod got people interested in Apple again. I think delivering a laptop-friendly Unix brought a ton of techies and developers to the platform. I think the move to Intel processors closed a huge performance gap that had been plaguing Apple.

Even today, while Apple's Mac business is doing great, how much of that is attributable to the impact that iOS had? Even then, Windows is still the vast majority of the market (85-90%). Most people never saw a reason to leave Windows.

If Apple hadn't gotten hit products like the iPod and iPhone, would we have seen the same huge resurgence in the Mac? Or would people continue buying faster Windows machines at a third of the price?

I'm a big Mac fan, but there were some painful days in there and 1998-2005 could be pretty painful. It wasn't all bad. Mac OS X was getting better by 2003-2004. But there was a lot that wasn't so great. Still, I know people who did switch then. Windows could be annoying as hell - but it didn't start being annoying in 1998. Windows 3.1 was very basic and Windows 95 would have all the same complaints as Windows 98. But Windows 95 was so much better than the Classic Mac OS. Windows XP was more usable than the early Mac OS versions. But OS X started showing promise and it was getting fans - and many were pissed off with Windows.

But I don't think that's what gave the Mac its resurgence. The iPod and iPhone brought users who wanted Apple's experience on their computer.

> Blockbuster stores were so ubiquitous and I never thought streaming would be a thing considering the state of the internet

Netflix started drinking Blockbuster's milkshake in the DVDs-by-mail day, because you didn't have to worry about late fees.

Blockbuster should have eliminated late fees and offered DVDs by subscription in-store, but they made too much money off the late fees.

>Blockbuster should have eliminated late fees and offered DVDs by subscription in-store, but they made too much money off the late fees.

FWIW they did do exactly that. It was a monthly subscription fee, you could have three movies or games out at a time, no late fees. I don't remember what the plan was named but I think it was movie pass, to start a new membership you typed "pass" into the terminal. It was pushed somewhat strongly in store I remember having a new sign ups quota per shift.

So strange that this somehow became a relevant tidbit in a post about Borland ignoring Macs.

This made me go search the wikipedia page. From what I can tell they had a dvd-by-mail service introduced in 2004 via Blockbuster.com. And between 2005-2010 they had a phony "no late fees" policy that got them sued for deceptive advertising..

I was young at the time but pretty sure subscribers in my store did not get late fees. I could only find two sources below to corroborate my memory. I would not be surprised that they were doing something shady to get sued though.

[1] https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/blockbuster-expan...

[2]https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1085734/000119312507...

>I think the real question is if someone other than Steve Jobs was running Apple, would they have gone the same way the companies you listed go as well?

John Sculley already answered this, no?

I think the true lesson to learn from the CEOs who weren’t Steve Jobs was that one of them had the foresight to get Steve Jobs back, after he had proven he was a keen leader with NeXt and especially with Pixar.

NeXt was not doing well financially, and neither was Pixar until Toy Story came out. He also did not run Pixar in any meaningful way.

He was very engaged in the business side, and kept close contact on the creative side but knew to leave well alone.

Pixar is a great example of Jobs understanding what he should NOT be doing, and not doing it. That must take incredible discipline.

Clearly you're not as keen business-wise as noted terrible CEO Gil Amelio, who correctly saw that NeXt being in the dumpster was a good thing, since they needed its software, not its revenues.

I'm not sure I understand your point. Yes, likely if NeXT had been doing better financially Apple couldn't have afforded it. You can check NeXT's aborted S-1 here.[1] They had an accumulated deficit of $273 million as of a few month's earlier, were almost out of cash, and were losing money.

Apple's purchase price of $400 million was not exactly a bonanza to their investors...

[1]https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20...