He entered the networking market long after Unix/BSD!
And in the early '80s Microsoft fell well behind Lotus 1-2-3 in electronic spread sheet sales, the software programs that really moved PCs into common business usage. Took them at least ten years to catch up in that application.
He entered networking market with Windows for Workgroups. That was 3.11, and the year was about 1992. He only supported Novell's Netware shares, and Windows' own, inefficient SMB shares. TCP was not developed by MS until Windows 95, and even then they heavily borrowed from BSD.
MS did see value in networking at the workplace. TCP/IP was not necessary for that because workplaces were small, and I don't recall Netware ever needing TCP/IP; they had their own IPX. Because of that Windows did not lead in networking - it was merely filling the needs that became blatantly obvious to any observer. Even that was done slowly.
BG never was in favor of Internet - this was against his ideas that he expressed in his book. He claimed "information under your fingertips," but that information was supposed to be purchased by every customer, and it should come on a CD. Microsoft produced Encarta, which was one of such CDs. There were answering services at Compuserve and other early BBS-like systems. Today one does not need such products, because a quick Google search will tell you more about care and feeding of anteaters, or of any other exotic critter, than you will ever find on a carefully balanced and proofread CD. BG was afraid of anything that he personally could not control; he sat idly on Internet interfaces (which is TCP/IP) for way too long.