[fjtorres]

The time to dethrone Windows was *before* NT was deployed.
Once NT took hold and MS migrated the DOS developers to NT the customers followed suit.

The barrier to adoption for *existing* desktop customers became disproportionate to the benefits LINUX might offer a specific customer. At that point it became a cycle: most developers need a big installed base to profit from an application and desktop users need a broad applications catalog to support their platform.

The Tyranny of the Installed Base is so strong new Windows releases spend tbe bulk of their life cycle competing with older versions and Microsoft is forced to support deprecated APIs such as 25year old Win32 and face resistance to newer software development models.

And it's not just Microsoft: Macintosh power users have been know to hang with dated hardware for 3-5 years rather than switch. And then there's things like Y2K and Y2K's 2020 echo that arise from application inertia.

The same applies to other platforms, like databases, browsers, phones, social media, home wiring...

Getting people to give up "good enough" for "better" isn't at all easy and merits in a vacuum aren't enough to move markets. Timing matters.

That is why LCD has outlasted CRT, Plasma, SED, and OLED, and will still be the dominant display tech at least another decade.

And why "better" reflective displays get nowhere.The market is small to start with and any alternative needs to be significantly better at things customers use the tech for and so far none of the challengers have cleared the bar on image quality, manufacturing cost, and power consumption combined.