You did say M$ made computers main stream, but whatever...
Anyway, don't forget that the term personal computer was infact coined by Apple and that the first truely popular "main stream" computer was indeed the Apple IIe.
Also, don't forget wonderfull little machines like the Tandy (yes yes, they sucked, but I had one sitting right next to my green apple screen
), the Commodor 64, VIC-20, early IBM's etc. etc. etc.
All of these computers were incredibly popular and saturated the booming PC market of the early to mid 80's (the decade when PC's became commonplace), notice something? No M$ in sight.
Apple didn't lose their home market at all, but M$ (by ripping off Apple with Windows 3.0) dominated the buisness market. So when dad brought a computer home, he wanted it to be compatoble with the one at work and lo and behold windows based PC's spread like wildfire.
And M$ was lovin it sooo much they decided to set up a home there and Bill Gates made famus quotes like how he wants everyone in the world to be using a windows PC. (previous notable quotables was Bill telling his lead windows designer: I want it to be just like a Mac on a PC!)
Now, on to the Clones...
Apple was struggling during those times due to the idiotic POS management that ousted Jobs (who in my oppinion would have kept the company on top had that backstabing Pepsi asshole not gotten so greedy) so when the stockholders came crawling on their hands and knees back to Jobs (the guy who actually loves the company and the computer he and Woz built from scratch (Bill is just in it for the $$$)) Jobs assesed the sittuation and axed the clones cuz they were leaching away money from Apples largest money makeing commodity, Hardware.
Axing the clones might seem like a bad idea, but it's why Apple is still here. A large part of Apple's revenue comes from hardware, and the software/hardware integration that they get to controll. You do realize that even though they may not be number one, Apple is among the top 25 most successfull technology companies. They are one of the most succesfull buisnesses in America and have a few billion tucked away in the bank, most of M$'s revenue isn't even hard cash. All of this is due to the fact that they controll both the hardware and software.
But rummers are circulating, and it's belived that OS X on x86, and perhapse even a comback of the clones may not be to far off in the future.
None the less, I can't think of a single thing M$ has done to make the computer industry better or stronger. What, pray tell, has their generosity twords the industry produced? Have they ever actualy come up with anything "inovative"?
