Windows operating system family: editions, features, and market position

The term Window as a name for a software interface element goes back to the WIMP paradigm (Window, Icon, Menu, Pointing-Device) developed in the early 1970s at Xerox PARC for the construction of user interfaces. Microsoft Windows is a system that implements this paradigm.

Originally, the US company Microsoft did not develop operating systems, but BASIC for various computer platforms since the mid-1970s. It was only with MS-DOS that Microsoft entered the operating system business in 1981, supplying BASICA for PC DOS and GW-BASIC for MS-DOS, among others, and other applications followed.

Microsoft also already contributed a BASIC interpreter for Apple, as well as the application programs Word and Multiplan (later Excel), which were also developed for the Macintosh. Inspired by Apple's graphical operating system, the Macintosh System Software, which in turn was inspired by the computer with the first graphical operating system ever - the Xerox Alto - Microsoft then developed its own DOS-based graphical interface "Interface Manager", which was renamed "Windows" shortly before the release of version 1.0 in 1985.

Already in the run-up Microsoft urged Apple to license the graphical user interface of the Apple Lisa to other PC manufacturers. But Apple did not want to give up its own hardware sales, since about 55% of its revenue came from sales of Apple computers.

When then Apple CEO John Sculley saw Windows 1.0, he immediately wanted to sue Microsoft. But Bill Gates put pressure on Sculley by threatening to immediately discontinue the widely used Macintosh applications Word and Excel unless Apple was willing to make concessions. Although both Apple and Microsoft had licensed the Graphical User Interface (GUI) from Xerox, Windows 1.0 looked all too similar to the Macintosh operating system in some details - right down to the "Special" menu that the Macintosh had first. Since Microsoft had insight into the source code of the "system software" in order to develop application programs, the suspicion of intentional copying was obvious. Microsoft, on the other hand, argued that development of the "Interface Manager" had already begun in 1983 - that is, before the prototype of the Macintosh was available. John Sculley, who was keen to establish third-party applications on the Macintosh platform and therefore did not want to do without Word and Excel, finally settled on a contract on November 22, 1985, which allowed Microsoft to publish Windows 1.0 despite all its similarities to the Macintosh's "system software". When Windows 2.03 was introduced almost three years later, Apple nevertheless decided to sue Microsoft for copyright infringement on March 17, 1988. Over five years later, on August 24, 1993, the suit was dismissed in Microsoft's favor. By then, Microsoft had already achieved a breakthrough with Windows 3.0 and 3.1.