Operating System Comparison Chart

Here is a table listing the operating systems Microsoft claims as competitors to its Windows operating system. The top items, which are the comsumer oriented operating systems, are listed in order of market share. So far, consumer orienter operating systems are the only ones relevant to the Department of Justice's anti-trust case and Windows leads the pack with a market share 90% or higher. The next competitor, MacOS, comes in with about 5% market share. One can only conclude Microsoft's lawyers are trying to fool the court when they include obsolete operating systems like DOS or server operating systems like Novell Netware in their list of competitors. The former are no longer relevant and the latter are competitors only for Windows NT, which does not have a dominant market position and is not an issue in the current anti-trust action.

Note: for the multi-user or server operating systems, the prices quoted are for lowest priced licence.

Name Company initial announcement initial release present version application original price present full price upgrade price OEM price comments
Windows Microsoft 1983 1985 98 consumer $100 $199 $99 $65
MacOS Apple 1983 1984 8.5 consumer ?? ?? $99 ??
OS/2 IBM 1987 1987 4.0 Warp? consumer, low-end server ?? ?? ?? ?? initially developed in collaboration with Microsoft, headed toward obsolescence as IBM concedes defeat to Microsoft's Windows
PC-DOS IBM 1980 1981 7.0 consumer ?? ?? ?? ?? obsolete
JavaOS Sun 1997 1998 1.0 consumer,embedded systems ?? ?? ?? ?? much touted but a non-factor so far
OpenDOS Caldera Thin Clients 1988 1988 7.0x embedded systems ?? $29 ?? ?? initially a viable competitor to PC-DOS and MS-DOS, now a niche player
Linux N/A 1991 1991 2.x server, advanced users, multi-user $0 $0 $0 ??
Netware Novell 1984 1985 5.0 server ?? ?? ?? ??
Solaris Sun 1982 1982 2.6 server, advanced users, multi-user ?? $450 ?? ??
HP/UX Hewlett-Packard 1988 1989 10.x server, advanced users, multi-user ?? ?? ?? ??
OpenVMS Compaq/Digital 1980 1980 7.2 server, multi-user ?? ?? ?? ?? niche market
Digital Unix Compaq/Digital 1990 1990 4.x server, advanced users, multi-user ?? $400+ ?? ??
Inferno Lucent ?? ?? ?? unknown ?? ?? ?? ?? never heard of it
Openserver Santa Cruz Operation ?? ?? ?? server, advanced user, multi-user ?? ?? ?? ??
Unixware Santa Cruz Operation 1970 1969 ?? server, advanded users, multi-user ?? ?? ?? the original Unix from AT&T Bell Labs
AIX IBM ?? ?? 4.x server, advanced users, multi-user ?? ?? ?? ??
OS/400 IBM ?? ?? ?? mainframes ?? ?? ?? ??
Windows NT Microsoft 1991 1993 4.0 server, advanced users ?? $319 $149 ??