Re-read what I wrote and think about it. I knew it would be open for creative interpretations like yours.
I did not attribute the Internet to Microsoft.
What I said is that "Microsoft enabled an incredible level of global competition" and it is this competition that, in turn, allowed the internet to evolve into what we have today.
Yes, networking existed way before MS.
Yes, TBL wrote the first browser on NS.
Yes, MS played catch-up with browsers.
That is not the point.
Linux didn't begin life until 1991. By that time the MS-ecosystem-driven PC evolution was very well under way. Linus Torvalds wrote the initial version of Linux on a '386 based PC. By that time PC clones ruled the world. The evolution had gone through the 8086, 80186 and 80286 processors. Machines cost a fraction of what the original true IBM PC cost, were faster and did a lot more.
None of this would have happened with a closed hardware model. In fact, it did not. Apple was around at the same time, of course. They focused on keeping it all to themselves. MS, in turn, just did the software and let everyone else figure out the hardware. Yes, it was chaotic but it worked.
As the internet begun to heat-up it was Linux running on PC hardware that made it explode. The internet required hardware to grow and explode into every corner of the world. It was the cheap PC hardware that resulted from the evolution of the PC around the MS software that, among other things, enabled the internet to explode like it did. Nobody can even attempt to credit Apple with any of that.
Again, I am not anti-Apple here. Among other things, I develop iOS apps and have a nearly equal number of Windows and MacOS machine in the shop. I will likely buy more Apple hardware in the next few months. No issues there.
My original post was not about bashing Apple, it was to highlight my concern for the increasing closed-everything (not just hardware) approach Apple is taking --which is a fact. In some cases it is almost despotic. As a developer, that concerns me a great deal. As a consumer, I prefer to see competition at all levels. I'd really like to see Apple open-up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_personal_computers#The_IBM_PC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_web_browsers