Alternative timeline: A better Windows ME

[KaiLikesToCode]

I have 2 answers, joke, and real.
Joke:
Sell all windows assets to Apple. Bill Gates stole the idea of a GUI OS anyway, lol.
Real:
DOS needed to be gone. Microsoft knew that. So ME was just filler. An attempt to keep DOS for a little longer. I would've just been like: Alright, delay the release of the next OS, and work on a DOS-less OS.

Note: I wasn't around for ME, but I tried to make this factually correct.

[TomXP411]

I have 2 answers, joke, and real.
Joke:
Sell all windows assets to Apple. Bill Gates stole the idea of a GUI OS anyway, lol.
Real:
DOS needed to be gone. Microsoft knew that. So ME was just filler. An attempt to keep DOS for a little longer. I would've just been like: Alright, delay the release of the next OS, and work on a DOS-less OS.

Note: I wasn't around for ME, but I tried to make this factually correct.

Actually, Windows NT had already been out for several years. What MS really should have done was double down on NT and skip Windows 9x entirely, but someone was married to the idea of a separate "consumer" and "business" OS... which is why we still have Windows 11 Home, Windows 11 Pro, and Windows 11 Enterprise...

If MS was smart, they would legit just make Windows 11 Home free. No license fees, no hidden advertising, no forced OneDrive integration. Just free. Keeping Windows relevant at home is the best way to ensure its relevance in the workplace, and that's where their real money comes from, anyway.

[kelli217]

Loss leaders are frowned upon by the FTC, especially when a company is in 'monopoly' territory with respect to market share.

[TomXP411]

Loss leaders are frowned upon by the FTC, especially when a company is in 'monopoly' territory with respect to market share.

They're already practically giving Windows away at the OEM level. Last I heard, an OEM license was something like $25, compared to the retail license, which is $100+. That has me constantly scratching my head when I go to set up a new machine, since home built machines (like most of mine) end up costing more than they should, thanks to the inflated cost of a retail license.

Considering the fact that their competition in the OS space is literally free, I don't see it as a loss leader, so much as an acknowledgement that the money today isn't in the desktop OS, but in licensing and management of Enterprise software.

Which leads me back to my original thesis: that Windows 9x was an ultimately doomed attempt to capture a market was better off not existing.