The graphical desktop of the Star featured windows, folders, and
icons, along with a “What You See Is What You Get”
(WYSIWYG) approach that allowed users to visually see and
manipulate text and images in a manner that represented how
they would be printed. These features, amongst others, were a
direct influence on both Apple and Windows as they developed
their own GUI-based operating systems.
In 1983 Apple released the Lisa, their first computer to utilize a
GUI. A year later they launched the Mac, which became the first
GUI-based computer to gain wide commercial success. Microsoft
debuted Windows 1.0 in 1985 as a GUI overlay on its DOS
operating system, but adoption was slow until 1990 with the
release of the much-improved Windows 3.0.
Although their operating systems had many similarities, the
business models of Apple and Microsoft could not have been
more different. Apple was a product company, and made money
by selling computers as complete packages of hardware and
software. Microsoft made no hardware at all. Instead, they
licensed Windows to run on compatible computers made by
third-party hardware manufacturers that competed on both
features and price.
As businesses embraced computers in every office they
overwhelmingly chose Windows as a more cost effective and
flexible option than the Mac. This majority market share in turn
created an incentive for software developers to write programs
for Windows. Bill Gates had found a way to create a business
model for software that was completely disconnected from the
hardware it ran on. In the mid-1990s even Apple briefly
succumbed to pressure and licensed their Mac OS to officially
run on Macintosh “clones.”