"The personal computer would have happened with or without Bill Gates. The IBM PC architecture would have trounced both the Apple and generic CP/M architectures, too, for a very simple reason: IBM wanted to dominate the business use of personal computers, while Steve Jobs wanted to dominate being very cool with technology, Steve Wozniac wanted to play, and Gary Kildall wanted to fly.

"But the personal computer wouldn't have happened the way it did without Gates and his merry band of renegades. Because of them, the computer that invaded corporate desktops was fundamentally personal -- an empowering technology that flattened corporate hierarchies and increased the ability of individual knowledge workers to influence business strategy, direction and outcomes. Had IBM maintained control of the architecture ... OS/2 was its attempt to regain it ... there's little doubt that the PC would have been a very different animal."

- Bob Lewis