this may be a tad winded...
I used an Amiga from 85 till 1996..
great computer.. lousy management and marketing. Had some decent apps, especially in the graphics, desktop publishing side of things such as:
- Video Toaster
- Page Master
- Final Writer
- Brilliance
- Deluxe Paint IV
- Art Department
Operating System was a little shaky at times liking to crash here and there, but over all very usable. what killed it for most was the thought that it was a games platform only. and once the compatibles took off ..well finding Amiga software outside of Amiga oriented shops was pretty tough.
However all in all the Amiga was a lot bigger in Europe then here in the US, so have commodore pay more attention to that market, makeing the right choices, getting the machine into schools and the homes and businesses and you just might have a shot at it.
How the Mac survived i will never know since i had a 040 mac for like 3 weeks.. i got so frustrated with it i finally took it back.. way to sluggish. apps yes.. sluggish and slow and no multi-tasking. My 030 Amiga 1200 ran circles around the thing.
BeOS never stood a chance .. way too late to the game.
Atari suffered the same problems as Amiga with the exception of finding a niche to hide in.
I would have to say that once the ink dried between IBM and microsoft that it was just a matter of time before it was game over. Why would you program for 5 or 6 different platforms when you can program for 1.
Kind of the reason why Linux is having troubles hitting the desktops.. the software that people think they NEED to use isnt available. they dont want to use Open Office .. they want to use MS office and they want the OS to be intuitive and simple to use so that grandma and grandpa can use the thing, linux is making some headway there, but its almost mute at this point outside of embedded server based stuff.
Look at cell phones as an example.
In the beginning there were Lots of Systems.. blackberry, Iphone, Windows Mobile.. and other mobile systems.. Of them Iphone was the most polished and best platform on the worst carrier. However everyone was jealous and wanted one. MS couldnt get Windows Mobile right, Business loved Blackberry, but noone else did. then along comes Android. Now Android is like early DOS/WINDOWS.. still putting the pieces together, but doing it rather quickly and its available for most cell carriers to use. and they are.. in droves.. so in the end you will have one cell platform.. my bet is on Android.