I'm somewhat surprised that Microsoft is listed third. A bit of a historical look, I'm not so sure I would have rated them quite so high myself. AKA:
- MS DOS: Actually it developed out of Q-DOS. MS acquired it, put their name to it, and for a time I've read OEMs were complaining that MS DOS wasn't advancing to make use of newer developments in hardware. From the versions I have used, some other DOSes like DR DOS seemed to have several nice features which MS DOS lacked.
- Windows, and the GUI: As many here no doubt know, Apple had a GUI before MS Windows, and as I remember Apple themselves got the idea from Xerox Park. OS/2 Warp also had a GUI. Then there was also X-Windows which presented the user with a GUI.
- win95 and where to begin:
* 32-bit pre-emptive multi-tasking (per their little "manual"/advertisement) and also claims.
However UNIX had been a 32-bit OS for sometime before 1995, as was OS/2. Besides, win95 pre-emptive multitasking? Some would argue given no support for more then 1 CPU, it isn't exactly multi-tasking. It's more giving time slices on the CPU so each program can get it's turn in cycles... Perhaps a claim to innovation could be made there; but not exactly what they claimed, and ditto on being the first to a 32-bit OS.
- IE: Well Netscape of course developed the browser. Microsoft acquired their browser code from another company, and in it's first incarnation, it was on the win95 Plus! pack. Well I messed with it, and neither I nor anyone I know was able to get that to even work. Perhaps some other people had better success.
IE 2.0 (came with winNT 4.0) did work, but functionally it was sort of a joke. Netscape was definitely better then. Arguably IE 3.0 is where Microsoft began to become competitive, and began to introduce some things that could entice people to switch from Netscape. Making it free was a plus for them with consumers; though Netscape of course didn't like having to provide free browsers.
It wouldn't be fair (IMO) to say Microsoft has never innovated anything of their own. But at the same time, some of their claimed innovations were in fact other people's ideas, or acquired through rather agressive business tactics, etc. Not sure I'd call them the third most innovate company out there. Actually I'm not sure what these people were looking at when making this determination.