Microsoft and Linux/Unix: Long Lost Loves?

What enterprising young tech whiz had a vision for a Unix-like operating system that could be run and enjoyed by PC users across the land?

Yes, in 1991, that was Linus Torvalds, who would use the Internet to pioneer not only a new PC operating system called Linux but also a new distributed, group-based way to create what came to be known as open source software.

But in 1980, that wasn't Torvalds but Bill Gates. Yes, back then, Gates envisioned a Microsoft version of Unix as the standard OS for all personal computers.

Unix was the multi-user, multi-tasking, mainframe operating system conceived at AT&T's Bell Labs by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie in 1969 and greatly enhanced through work at the University of California at Berkeley under the name BSD, short for Berkeley Software Distribution.

Microsoft licensed Unix from AT&T in 1979 (but couldn't use the name, which AT&T retained exclusive rights to), and announced plans for XENIX, its own version for the new microcomputer market, in 1980. In their book, Gates, authors Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews quote the "Microsoft Quarterly" at that time: "The XENIX system's inherent flexibility, along with this commitment from Microsoft, will make the XENIX OS the standard operating system for the computers of the eighties."

A few months later, IBM came knocking, looking for a very lean, very basic PC operating system. When Gates and Paul Allen couldn't sell them on XENIX, Microsoft bought QDOS (quick and dirty operating system) from Tim Patterson and Seattle Computer Products, polished it up and re-licensed it to IBM, and MS-DOS became the standard OS for IBM-PC and for its future clones.

But Microsoft kept its Unix pony in the OS game, releasing at least three versions of XENIX from the early to mid-80s and successfully licensing XENIX to Tandy and other leading PC makers of the day. XENIX proved one of the most popular commercial versions of UNIX around in part because its ready-to-go "Unix for PCs" configuration was a much more affordable option than other Unix license options and mainframe hardware.

Apparently, Microsoft even envisioned upgrading their entire DOS base over to the more sophisticated XENIX product, as suggested in comments Paul Allen made in the June/July 1982 edition of PC Magazine: "It's important to realize that MS-DOS is part of a family of operating systems.... Providing the user with a family of operating system capabilities means a clear migration path from MS-DOS to XENIX."

So what happened? Why do have Windows today and not XENIX? Or Linux today and not XENIX? In short, it seems that in the mid-80s, Microsoft decided that delivering a great user experience on the desktop, as Apple had done with the Macintosh, would be the key to the future. That seemed out of step with what was then the command-line focus of Unix. They sold  XENIX off to SCO, and focused instead on evolving MS-DOS into the current Windows environment of today.

During that time, Linus and his band of hackers hatched Linux, built in part on the new Microsoft-influenced reality of widespread PCs across the globe.  And since then, Apple has embraced Unix as its new underlying operating system, becoming the biggest commercial Unix vendor ever. But Gates and Microsoft remain very familiar with the ins and outs of Unix (it greatly influenced the evolution of Windows-NT.) And they may yet find some novel ways to benefit from the rising popularity of Linux and Unix.