I recall Microsoft launching some software for iOS and Android before Windows Phone too. They are probably separate divisions with some Independence to choose what platforms to release their products to.

Yeah I remember using Lotus Symphony at work around 1986-88 on an IBM XT or AT running DOS, and converting some long macro from Excel I found in a magazine. We didn't get Windows [at work] for another 5 years if I recall correctly, and Excel some time after that.

According to Pirates of Silicon Valley, Microsoft only signed on as a Mac developer so they would have access to the MacOS so they could copy it to make Windows.

sliderider wrote:

According to Pirates of Silicon Valley, Microsoft only signed on as a Mac developer so they would have access to the MacOS so they could copy it to make Windows.

I can't image that was the only reason they developed for Mac; that was pre-clone wars era and Apple were still considered a big player in the PC market, so MS would have wanted to hedge their bets.

sliderider wrote:

According to Pirates of Silicon Valley, Microsoft only signed on as a Mac developer so they would have access to the MacOS so they could copy it to make Windows.

Conspiracy theory aside it made sense to have some experience in GUI software development. A few OEM hardware vendors were behind MS to develop Windows into something more useful. From what I understand programming for Macs wasn't a task to be taken lightly either.

Early Windows prior to 95 still suffered from things like the 8.3 by file naming convention when they could have opted for virtual long file names similar to what GeoWorks did.

Caluser2000 wrote:

From what I understand programing for Macs wasn't a task to be taken lightly either.

Assuming they wrote in assembler, that's a while different architecture to learn. Plus, Motorola CPUs are big endian so maybe they just wanted a challenge.