“[The Windows API] is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system instead. It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO [total cost of ownership], our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties. Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, [but] it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move.” — Microsoft C++ general manager Aaron Contorer explains Windows’ greatest selling point in a 1997 memo to Bill Gates.

From the Mercury News‘ “Good Morning Silicon Valley” email newsletter.