2015 will mark the 30th anniversary of Windows, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) iconic operating system first launched in November 1985. 2015 will also mark the year that Windows 10 will be released, the follow-up to the critically panned Windows 8.

Over the last decade customer’s computing needs have shifted. The computing landscape is dramatically different in 2015 than in 2001, when Microsoft launched Windows XP its most popular operating system and considered to be the company’s best. People compute in different ways, and Microsoft now has to compete with new operating systems that have appeared in the last decade like Android in addition to longtime rival Mac OS from Apple (NASDAQ: APPL).

Microsoft now is at a critical juncture.The success or failure of Windows 10 will be turning point for Microsoft. The exact nature of Windows 11 will depend on whether the market embraces or rejects Windows 10. If the market embraces Windows 10, it’s very likely that the follow-up will be more of the same. A failure of Windows 10 — a repeat of Windows 8 — will force Microsoft back to the drawing board with the OS, re-imagining it from the ground up.

Back to the beginning: DOS

A history of Windows needs to begin with what preceded it: DOS. DOS, later known as MS-DOS, was Microsoft’s first operating system and until Windows ME the foundation of what Windows ran on.

The birth of MS-DOS began in 1981 when Microsoft met with IBM (NYSE: IBM) to discuss making an operating system for its upcoming personal computer.

Microsoft already had a relationship with IBM, as it was licensing the BASIC language to IBM. The scope and complexity of creating an entire operating system was beyond Microsoft’s resources available at the time, but that didn’t stop Bill Gates: he bought the full rights to DOS from a small firm based in Washington called Seattle Computer Products for $50,000.

The meeting that started this deal is dramatized in the film Pirates of the Silicon Valley:

Seattle Computer Products’ owner Rod Brock was unaware of the exact nature of the deal between Microsoft and IBM. However, when he discovered the profits Microsoft was making selling DOS to IBM he tried to sell the company and all of its intellectual property to one of IBM’s rivals. This led to a lawsuit between Brock and Microsoft and the two parties settled out of court for $925,000, and Microsoft confirmed its rights and license to DOS.

The first Windows

Microsoft announced Windows, first called Windows for DOS and known by its code name of, in 1983. It was finally released in 1985. However, it was not the first operating system with a graphical user interface. That honor goes to Apple’s Macintosh.

Windows shipped with several simple programs, such as MS‑DOS file management, Paint, Windows Writer, Notepad, Calculator, and a calendar, card file, and clock.

While Windows was praised for helping change the paradigm of how people interact with computers, this first version of the world’s most important operating system largely stood in the shadow of Macintosh. Apple, however felt threatened and sued Microsoft in 1988 for copyright infringement, claiming that Microsoft copied the “look and feel” of its operating system.

However Apple itself did not invent the GUI. That honor goes to Xerox, which effectively gave it away to Apple.

Support for Windows 1.0 ended in December 2001.

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Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) announced Thursday morning that it was downgrading its revenue prospects for its upcoming first-quarter earnings release due to the continued shift from desktop PCs to mobile.

Intel expects revenue to be approximately $12.8 billion, plus or minus $300 million, down from $13.7 billion, plus or minus $500 million.

“The change in revenue outlook is a result of weaker than expected demand for business desktop PCs and lower than expected inventory levels across the PC supply chain,” Intel wrote in a statement released Thursday morning. “The company believes the changes to demand and inventory patterns are caused by lower than expected Windows XP refresh in small and medium business and increasingly challenging macroeconomic and currency conditions, particularly in Europe.”

Many vendors in the PC space, including Intel, have been the victim of a prolonged upgrade cycle. Though Windows XP has been pushed to its end of life, many large enterprises are hanging on to their Windows 7-based machines. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Intel and other vendors in the space hope that the upcoming release of Windows 10 will spur demand for upgrades.

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Steam has more than 15 million users worldwide and is to software distribution what World of Warcraft is in the world of MMO games. But probably the most interesting part of Steam is world famous “Steam Hardware Survey”. Every month, Valve collect data from 15 million users and lists what kind of hardware do people use. This is an invaluable process that gives developers golden information about platforms they should target. In my discussions with game developers, I had countless verbal battles with people who didn’t want to create a game for high-end hardware, because the adoption rate is too low. Well, think again.

In survey for November 2008, stats show that Intel leads the CPU share with 63.62%, while AMD owns the remaining 36.38%. Dual-core dominates with 49.04%, e.g. almost eight million people own a dual-core processor. Quad-core captured just 10.43%, which means quaddies have a mountain to climb. It is surprising to see that 40.19% still own a single-core processor, but multi-thread support is a must-have feature today, not tomorrow – 59.47% own a multi-thread capable computer.

CPU-wise, best sellers are Core 2 Duo E6600 and E6700 processors (2.4-2.66 GHz), while owners of AMD platform just cannot get enough of Athlon 64 X2 2.2 GHz (4400+). Graphics-wise, Nvidia captured 65.11% of all steam users, translated into more than 10 million gamers. Here comes the most interesting part of the survey. According to Steam, GeForce 8800 captured the hearts of no less than 32.35% of users. Out of 10 million Nvidia users, more than three million people own a high-performing GeForce 8800 card – it is almost incredible to see that amount of 3D horsepower taking more market share than numerous mainstream and low-end cards. 

API is a key decided in what platform to go with, and software developers will appreciate the fact that even though almost half of all Steam users use DirectX 10 hardware, only 21.43% of all steam users can actually use DX10 API. Windows XP is loved by more than massive majority of DX10 HW-owning users.

Numbers don't lie, and these are results from more than 15M people around the world. World's largest IT-related survey, that's for sure.

Summary

All in all, I would conclude that this survey proves just how popular Core 2 Duo and GeForce 8800 are. If you’re working on game code optimization today, and plan to launch the game on Steam in 2009, focus your efforts on following parts:

• Vista is a failure, gamers are waiting for Windows 7 to tell Good Bye to Windows XP
• Focus optimization on two cores, most likely in 2.5 GHz range
• 480.000 users overclocked their CPU beyond fastest shipping clock, additional 1.5 million moderately overclock their machines
• Users have around 100GB of free space on the hard drive
• Most of users have 512MB of video memory.
• Most popular resolution is 1024×768
• Most widescreen users use 27″ screens (surprised?), followed by 24″ ones. Thus, for widescreen focus on FullHD resolution
• Multi-GPU is esoteric at best, with 1.79% of overall share. Yes, only 280.000 people have multi-GPU configuration, with SLI dominating the share with 1.55% (240.000).
• Currently, nobody uses 4 GPUs with ATI chips and mere 4600 people own two 7950GX2 cards
• Valve currently makes world’s largest IT-based survey, and probably one of largest surveys in existence (does anybody know how many people Nielsen actually track?)  

All in all, Steam survey offered an interesting insight. I’ll follow-up on this one in our future monthly reports on Steam.

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Order clockwise: Windows 1.0, 3.0, 95, NT 4.0, XP, Vista, 2000 and NT 3.1

Windows 1.0 finally entered production in September of 1985, and first system came from NEC, shipped right in November 1985. So, Windows is either 23 or 25 years old, but anyways, I wish to congratulate Microsoft on 25th birthday of the software platform that changed the world.

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