Microsoft software on more than Windows

People are surprise -- and some astonished -- that Microsoft would release software for an operating system other than Windows.

They shouldn't be. Microsoft has a long history of providing software on operating systems other than Windows.

What are they?

• PC-DOS and MS-DOS, of course. But that is, as mathematicians would say, a "trivial solution".
• Mac OS and Mac OS X. Microsoft supplied "Internet Explorer for Mac" on OS 7, although it has discontinued that product. Microsoft supplies "Office for Mac" as an active product.
• Unix. Microsoft supplied "Internet Explorer for Unix".
• OS/2. Before the breakup with IBM, Microsoft worked actively on several products for OS/2.
• CP/M. Before MS-DOS and PC-DOS there was CP/M, an operating system from the very not_microsoft company known as Digital Research. Microsoft produced a number of products for CP/M, mainly its BASIC interpreter and compilers for BASIC, FORTRAN, and COBOL.
• ISIS-II and TEKDOS. Two early operating systems which ran Microsoft BASIC.
• Any number of pre-PC era computers, including the Commodore 64, the Radio Shack model 100, and the NEC 8201, which all ran Microsoft BASIC as the operating system.

It is true that Microsoft, once it obtained dominance in the market with PC-DOS/MS-DOS (and later Windows) built software that ran only on its operating systems. But Microsoft has a long history of providing software for use on non-Microsoft platforms.

Today Microsoft provides software on Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, and now Chrome. What this means is that Microsoft sees opportunity in all of these environments. And possibly, Microsoft may see that the days of Windows dominance are over.

That Windows is no longer the dominant solution may shock (and frighten) people. The "good old days" of "Windows as the standard" had their problems, and people grumbled and complained about things, but they also had an element of stability. One knew that the corporate world ran on Windows, and moving from one company to another (or merging two companies) was somewhat easy with the knowledge that Windows was "everywhere".

Today, companies have options for their computing needs. Start-ups often use MacBooks (and therefore Mac OS X). Large organizations have expanded their list of standard equipment to include Linux for servers and iOS for individuals. The market for non-Windows software is now significant, and Microsoft knows it.

I see Microsoft's expansion onto platforms other than Windows as a return to an earlier approach, one that was successful in the past. And a good business move today.