Like a lot of people who cover technology I got my start in the IT world and became incredibly critical of it. In the 90s it was fairly terrible: Most workers had to be trained on how to use a computer and many of them just didn’t have the natural talent to do it well. And that’s when – twenty years ago today -- Microsoft launched the very user-friendly Windows 95. It changed everything.
The importance of Windows 95 can’t be downplayed; it was the first commercial operating system aimed and regular people, not just professionals or hobbyists. That said, it was also powerful enough to appeal to the latter set as well, including built-in support for things like modems and CD-ROM drives. Compared to its predecessor, Windows 3.1, it was like using something from the future.
Except, perhaps, to Mac users. Apple’s fans had a fun time toying with new Windows users by explaining that many of the new features Microsoft was advertising in its new flagship OS were also features that the Mac OS had had for quite awhile. Things like preemptive multitasking, built-in networking, and a desktop-based interface had been hallmarks of the Mac for years. “Windows 95 = Macintosh 88” was a common saying amongst the faithful with even Steve Jobs boldly professing the idea. “They copied the original Mac with Windows 95,” he famously gloated.
Of course, that didn’t keep millions of eager users from opting to choose Windows 95 over buying a Mac, and those millions were impressed with what they got.
While it wasn’t perfect – it had a few bugs and some promised features would be included in later updates – but it more or less behaved as advertised. And that was good enough for power users but more importantly it allowed the average person to get into the PC game (relatively) inexpensively without having to learn any special skills.
In that sense it made the idea of a computer in every home practical and gave the World Wide Web the democratized platform it needed to exist. For better or worse, Windows 95 pave the way for the information age for most people, and out of its popularity grew things like digital music downloads, photo sharing, even personal email, all things that most people before it had never given a thought to.
That’s not to say that it wouldn’t have happened without the OS – the Internet had already been around for quite awhile at that point and Jobs or any of the others would have had a chance to pounce on the opportunity, but it was Microsoft that did so, and to a soundtrack by The Rolling Stones, to boot.
So while Windows 95 was certainly Microsoft’s most important operating system, it could also be argued that it is also the most important OS to have ever been launched at all, and that’s coming from a life-long Mac user.
