I didn't mean to imply Microsoft failed to do it, only that Jobs saw it and first had the **gasp** vision (I hate that word), to do it, to put it in a tiny box. Oh, he also had Wozniak and Hertzberg and the rest of that crazy engineering team to make it happen. And if it weren't for that jackass Scully, the Macintosh was going to premiere at $1995.
Anyway, I only mean to say that in my observation, Windows GUI innovations trail Mac GUI innovations.
OTOH, Windows had true preemptive multitasking before the Mac...no small potatoes that.
Well, you are simply giving Jobs credit for being there first - and he was. No question about it. I remember playing with an Apple II in 1978, when I think Gates was still in school. Yes, it was astonishing at the time, being able to manipulate pictures on the screen whereas a few years earlier, in 1975, the computers I was using were glorified adding machines on typewriters. So Gates came along later - terrific. He assembled some fine talent of his, and they haven't done half bad.