Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Maybe.
But when Gates personally lobbied them to support Windows they refused and put tbeir development efforts into much smaller installed bases.
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Gates always attached strings to his offers. Ami (then Ami Pro, then WordPro) was the first Windows word processor out there, even before Word. But being early didn't gain them much (either for Samna or Lotus, who bought Ami Pro in about 1989 or 1990, early on in the Windows world).
As for using whatever you want in the Windows world... that's what I did. Never did buy into the concept of using one office suite. My database was dBase for DOS (and Windows). My word processor (what little I used a general Windows word processor) was Lotus WordPro and my (personal) spreadsheet (what little I used a Windows spreadsheet) was Quattro Pro.
EDIT: One more thing I wanted to add... Microsoft may have wanted to "play" with the others, but they always wanted to dictate the standards to their advantage. One example of shooting themselves in the foot. Windows Phone was finally getting traction, especially in the corporate world. The corporation where my brother worked was rolling out Windows phones to all employees... until they discovered that the codec Microsoft insisted on using couldn't play voice mail from Cisco (and other VOIP) mailboxes. (Very important in the corporate world.) Microsoft refused to change, even though the Cisco "standard" had been in place for years. They demanded Cisco change. The corporation where my brother worked stopped the Windows Phone rollout (returned the Windows phones) and went with Samsung Galaxy phones. I have no idea why Microsoft was so stubborn here, but I'm guessing they wanted to dictate the standard. Once they finally caved, Windows Phones had lost their momentum and never got it back. I think Microsoft was used to using their monopoly position in the Windows world to get whatever they wanted and couldn't adjust to being thwarted for once.