Very Different
There would never have been any 32-bit versions: no Windows NT, no Windows 95; no Explorer, no Start menu or taskbars. That, in turn, might well have killed off Apple as well. No iPod, no iPhone, no fondleslabs. Twenty-first century computers would be unimaginably different.
Interesting article, but this paragraph is hyperbolic nonsense.
Also Win95 was two years AFTER NT and should never have existed. The Explorer shell was separate and was on preview on NT 3.5x
It's got nothing to do with the Mac. Nothing to do with iPod, iPhone or Tablets and a Win 3.1 Tablet existed. (iOS, Linux, Android, Windows 10).
Lisa, precusor to Mac, was released on 19th January 1983. Development started earlier. This MS OS/2 SDK was 1990. I think there was an MS OS/2 from 1989.
CPUs with 32 bits and flat addressing meant OS for them would be developed. Intel was behind.
Most of the WIMP GUIs were inspired by 1970s Xerox.
Apple iPod succeeded because of iTunes 99c track deal. They were late into PMPs/MP3.
The iPhone a success due to the data contracts. It was 9 years after smart phones came out and 2 after Nokia politics killed their better than S60 GUI on Symbian.
MS was shipping Xenix in 1982. All internal Microsoft email transport was done on Xenix-based 68000 systems until 1995–1996, when the company moved to its own Exchange Server product.
MS doing NT was inevitable. The IBM - MS "partnership" on DOS and then OS/2 was never going to last.
Nokia switched from 486 to ARM for Communicator 9210 in 2001. The ARM CPU was first used in desktop Archimedes and also funded by Apple (and usein Newton, started in 1987 and released in 1992). Acorn's ARM made it possible to have decent battery life on PMPs, Smart phones and Tablets.
Acorn's Archimedes had RiscOS and Unix by 1988, running on ARM
Tablets:
Alan Kay's Dynabook "A personal computer for children of all ages (1972)"
PDAs were an early form of tablet and I was designing one in 1987-1989, with aspects inspired by Dynabook, Project Xanadu, Apple Hypercard, the digital cordless system that later became DECT, and DOS based FutureNet CAD/CAE (which used hyperlinks).
Hitachi patented a touchscreen tablet in 1979.
Atari 1992
EU / Acorn Newspad 1994-1997.
1992, IBM shipped the ThinkPad 700T running GO Corporation's PenPoint OS.
1992 MS also had a Pen version of Windows.
OS/2 was interesting. I did some support on MS OS/2 with LanManager server maybe 1992 and migrated IBM OS/2 Textmode applications for a Finance Dept to NT4.0 in 1998. I played with OS/2 Warp and the kids had Win9x for games consoles. We were installing NT 3.5 servers, then NT 3.51 after Win95 came out, migrations from Xenix or Netware. Installing WFWG 3.11 as workstations with Win32s till NT4.0 came out.
1993 AT&T's EO Personal Communicator on the Hobbit CPU
1993 launch of Apple Newton on ARM
Intel was behind on 32 bits and the 8088/8086 wasn't even a real 16 bit. That held PC OSes back for years. The 80286 was first real 16 bit PC, and 386 the 32 bit. But DOS, win3.x and Win9x started them in 8086 mode. Win95 executed older code natively, but NT, already 2 years old, used a VM for 8086 code (pseudo 16bits because segments). It ran only 32 bit. Win9x killed the Pentium Pro because it had no simple switch back to native 8086 mode.
IBM was caught out with PCs being successful, but the PS/2 and OS/2 were typical IBM dead ends. They were selling AS/400 computers shrunk to a PC Tower format when OS/2 and PS/2 were both essentially dead.
The MS OS/2 with Lanmanager was probably always going to be a stop gap as servers for Win 2.x. They obviously decided Xenix was never going to be what they wanted as they sold it to the original SCO (I installed that once!). Not the later litigating SCO.