Hi ctl-alt-del - Oh, boy! Now you've opened up a can 'o' worms!
"What if Microsoft weren't?"
Yes, we would be connected. I'm as sure of that as I can be when speculating on an alternate reality. We might all be using Macs or SparcStations or SGI machines or NeXT boxes - all of which are stronger and more stable than WIntel stuff. We'd quite possibly be further ahead than we are now. None of us can tell.
Linux, BTW, was conceived long before Windows was more than a buggy pipedream. A quick search in
showed an article available from Linus Torvalds discussing Linux, his brainchild based on UNIX, on August 25th, 1991. (I don't know the date of the first release of Linux - can anyone enlighten me?) The newest hardware thing at that time was the IBM AT and its clones. Windows barely existed except in development (actually, as IBM's OS/2!) and what was available was buggy as hell and there were few apps for it - not even MS Apps, except for Paintbrush maybe. Word and Excel were only ported to DOS and Mac.
Nevertheless, you are right (if I understand what you are trying to say accurately) that Darwin's natural selection is an inescapable reality and, given that Gates, Allen, and Ballmer happened to be there to take the place of ol' what's'isname (the CPM guy who dropped the ball) when IBM came calling, Microsoft has been equally inescapable.
Cheers, woggie