And that, folks, is arguably the single biggest contribution to Apple's success. Every hero needs a villain, and if Windows had actually been good instead of merely the lesser evil I think Apple would have had a much harder time of breaking into the desktop market. I know it's "cool" to shit on Windows and Microsoft, and I actually despise Apple products, but let's be frank: Microsoft had a great opportunity and they blew it. Windows 8 will not return them to their former place of glory.<p>Microsoft had <i>huge</i> mind share. Everybody's aunts and uncles were all running Windows in the XP heydays. Microsoft has (had?) enormous talent but it's seemingly been squandered. Their design decisions in the last decade or so seem to continually shift from one boneheaded idea to the next. Using a modern Windows is an exercise in frustration from start to finish, as Bill so helpfully illustrates here.<p>I've never worked at MSFT but every single bit of news I read about them points to massive, systemic cultural problems and I think those problems manifest themselves in what could have been a truly stellar series of operating systems.<p>IMHO I truly think the only thing keeping Windows in the OS game is gaming. As soon as gaming on Linux (or even OSX) becomes viable I believe Windows will cease to exist outside the mobile space.