[fryke]

Let's go back in time. Apple actually had much more market share initially. When Windows came to version 3 in 1992, it certainly wasn't better than the then current Macintosh OS, then simply called "System". But the PC world had two definite advantages: PCs were cheaper and available from several (many, actually) vendors in various configurations, whereas you could only get so many different Mac models, all from one vendor at higher prices. If Apple had taken the opportunity and licensed the OS to other manufacturers then, history would've looked different.

_Today_, eric's points are the important ones. But it's important to see that if the market would start today instead of 30 years ago, things would probably look different. I guess in such a case, we'd see 80% linux, 19% Mac and maybe 1% freaks who'd pay for an inferior XP-rience, because they like the gummi look.

This thread certainly is more fitting in the opinions forum, so I'm moving it there.