My understanding was that the first release of Windows came a long time after the initial announcement, but it was a little before my time.
Microsoft's usual strategy, that no one has explicitly stated yet, is to try and discourage its customers from buying a product by promising the moon 'just around the corner' for a couple years. Microsoft is seen as a better long term bet, and this depresses sales even though it doesn't actually have a product yet, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of the failure of its competitors.
So when people are angrily referring to Microsoft vaporware, that's what they're talking about.
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Ok, so your example just shows that you can be super successful using the vaporware strategy...
Only if that's all there was to Microsoft's success.
Their successful in spite of announcing a lot of vaporware, but their biggest win of all; windows was top secret until it was released, right?
My understanding was that the first release of Windows came a long time after the initial announcement, but it was a little before my time.
Microsoft's usual strategy, that no one has explicitly stated yet, is to try and discourage its customers from buying a product by promising the moon 'just around the corner' for a couple years. Microsoft is seen as a better long term bet, and this depresses sales even though it doesn't actually have a product yet, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of the failure of its competitors.
So when people are angrily referring to Microsoft vaporware, that's what they're talking about.