Electronics Guide

The Rise of Windows Dominance

Microsoft Windows consolidated its position as the dominant desktop operating system during this era. Windows 95, released in August 1995, represented a watershed moment in computing history. Its graphical user interface, 32-bit architecture, and integrated networking capabilities made personal computing accessible to mainstream users. The Start menu, taskbar, and Windows Explorer established interface paradigms that persist to the present day.

Windows 98, released in 1998, improved hardware support and internet integration. Windows ME (Millennium Edition) in 2000 attempted to bridge consumer and business products but suffered from stability issues that damaged consumer confidence. Meanwhile, Windows NT evolved along a separate track for business and server applications, offering greater stability and security at the cost of hardware compatibility.

Windows 2000, released in February 2000, brought NT-class stability to business desktops. Windows XP, launched in October 2001, finally unified the consumer and business product lines on the NT kernel. XP combined the user-friendly interface of the consumer Windows versions with the stability and security of the NT architecture. Its success was unprecedented, remaining the dominant Windows version for over a decade and continuing in use well beyond its intended lifespan.

Microsoft's dominance attracted regulatory scrutiny. The United States v. Microsoft antitrust case, initiated in 1998, examined the company's competitive practices, particularly its bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. The case resulted in a 2001 settlement that imposed conduct restrictions but stopped short of breaking up the company. The European Union pursued separate antitrust actions, ultimately resulting in significant fines and requirements to offer browser choices.

Alternative Operating Systems

Despite Windows dominance, alternative operating systems maintained significant niches. Apple's Macintosh platform struggled through the mid-1990s with aging hardware and software, nearly disappearing entirely. Steve Jobs' return to Apple in 1997 initiated a turnaround. The iMac, introduced in 1998, revitalized Apple's consumer hardware with its distinctive design and USB connectivity. Mac OS X, released in 2001, replaced the aging Mac OS with a Unix-based foundation that provided modern memory protection, preemptive multitasking, and stability previously unavailable on Macintosh.

Linux emerged as a significant platform during this decade. The open-source operating system, created by Linus Torvalds in 1991, gained momentum as distributions like Red Hat, Debian, and later Ubuntu made installation and use more accessible. Linux found particular success in server applications, where its stability, security, and zero licensing cost made it attractive for web hosting, database servers, and scientific computing. Desktop Linux remained a niche pursuit, beloved by technical users but never achieving mainstream adoption.

Various Unix variants served specialized markets. Sun Microsystems' Solaris dominated high-end servers and workstations. FreeBSD and other BSD variants powered many internet services. These systems, while never achieving broad consumer adoption, provided crucial infrastructure for the internet's explosive growth.

The Open Source Movement

The open source software movement gained significant momentum during this period, fundamentally changing software development practices and business models. The term "open source" was coined in 1998 to describe software whose source code was freely available for modification and redistribution. This represented both a practical development methodology and a philosophical stance about software freedom.

The Apache web server exemplified open source success, powering the majority of websites throughout this era. MySQL provided a free, capable database system. The LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python) became the foundation for countless web applications, demonstrating that open source software could compete with and often exceed commercial alternatives.

Major technology companies gradually embraced open source. IBM invested heavily in Linux, recognizing it as a strategic platform for its server hardware and services businesses. Sun Microsystems open-sourced its Solaris operating system and the OpenOffice productivity suite. Even Microsoft, initially hostile to open source, eventually developed more nuanced engagement with the movement, though this evolution accelerated primarily after 2005.

The open source movement also spawned new licensing approaches. The GNU General Public License (GPL) required that modifications to GPL-licensed code also be released under GPL terms, ensuring ongoing openness. More permissive licenses like BSD and MIT allowed incorporation into proprietary products. These licensing frameworks enabled diverse business models around open source software.

Laptop Computer Mainstream Adoption

Laptop computers transformed from expensive specialty items to mainstream computing devices during this decade. In 1995, laptops were bulky, expensive, and significantly less capable than desktop systems. Screen quality was poor, battery life measured in hours rather than a full workday, and performance lagged significantly behind desktop equivalents. Most laptops served as supplements to desktop machines rather than primary computers.

Technological advances steadily improved the laptop proposition. Mobile processors from Intel (Pentium Mobile, later Pentium M and Centrino) offered better performance-per-watt than desktop chips adapted for mobile use. Active matrix LCD screens improved brightness, color accuracy, and viewing angles. Lithium-ion batteries provided higher energy density than earlier technologies. Hard drives designed for portable use offered shock resistance and lower power consumption.

Intel's Centrino platform, launched in 2003, represented a turning point for laptop computing. Centrino combined a mobile-optimized processor, integrated wireless networking, and power-efficient chipsets into a cohesive platform. Laptops built on Centrino offered genuine all-day battery life while maintaining competitive performance. Integrated Wi-Fi eliminated the need for separate wireless cards, promoting laptop use in the growing number of wireless hotspots.

By 2005, laptops had achieved near parity with desktops for most computing tasks. Business users increasingly chose laptops as their primary machines, valuing the ability to work from home, on the road, and in meetings. Students carried laptops to classes. Home users appreciated the flexibility to compute from anywhere in the house. The shift from desktop to laptop computing, which would accelerate in subsequent years, was well underway.

Processor and Performance Advances

Semiconductor technology continued its relentless advance during this decade, enabling dramatic improvements in computing capability. Intel's Pentium processor, running at 60-66 MHz in 1993, evolved through multiple generations. The Pentium Pro (1995) introduced advanced microarchitecture features targeting servers and workstations. The Pentium II (1997) and Pentium III (1999) brought these improvements to mainstream computers while adding multimedia instructions.

The clock speed race reached its zenith during this era. Intel's Pentium 4, introduced in 2000, was designed primarily for high clock speeds. Systems reached 3 GHz by 2002, and Intel projected 10 GHz within a few years. However, power consumption and heat generation increased faster than clock speeds, eventually forcing a change in strategy. By 2005, both Intel and AMD were pivoting toward multi-core processors and performance-per-watt optimization rather than raw clock speed.

AMD emerged as a serious competitor to Intel during this decade. The Athlon processor, launched in 1999, offered competitive performance at lower prices. AMD's Athlon 64, introduced in 2003, brought 64-bit computing to desktop and server markets, forcing Intel to respond with its own 64-bit extensions. The competition between Intel and AMD drove innovation and kept prices moderate throughout the period.

Memory technology evolved alongside processors. SDRAM gave way to DDR SDRAM, doubling effective bandwidth. Memory capacities expanded from megabytes to gigabytes. A typical high-end system might have 16-32 MB of RAM in 1995 but 512 MB to 1 GB by 2005. These increases enabled increasingly sophisticated software, from multimedia editing applications to complex games to memory-hungry web browsers.

Storage Revolution

Storage capacity expanded dramatically while costs plummeted. Hard drives in 1995 typically offered hundreds of megabytes to a few gigabytes. By 2005, drives commonly provided hundreds of gigabytes. Perpendicular magnetic recording, introduced commercially in 2005, promised continued capacity growth for years to come.

Optical storage played a crucial role in software distribution and data archiving. CD-ROM drives became standard equipment, with CD writers (CD-R and CD-RW) becoming affordable for consumers by the late 1990s. DVD-ROM drives appeared in the late 1990s, offering 4.7 GB capacity compared to the CD's 700 MB. DVD writers reached consumers by the early 2000s, though format wars between DVD+R and DVD-R created some confusion.

Flash memory emerged as an increasingly important storage medium. CompactFlash and later SD cards provided removable storage for digital cameras and portable devices. USB flash drives, appearing around 2000, offered convenient portable storage that quickly rendered floppy disks obsolete. While flash storage remained too expensive for primary storage in 2005, the trajectory toward solid-state storage was becoming visible.

Storage networking evolved for enterprise applications. Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices provided shared file storage over standard networks. Storage Area Networks (SANs) offered high-performance block-level storage for databases and virtual machines. These technologies enabled more efficient storage utilization and simplified backup and disaster recovery.

Server Virtualization Beginnings

Server virtualization, which would transform data center computing in subsequent years, emerged during this decade. Virtualization technology, allowing multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical server, had existed since the mainframe era but required adaptation for the x86 platform that dominated modern servers.

VMware, founded in 1998, pioneered x86 virtualization. VMware Workstation, released in 1999, allowed developers to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single workstation. VMware ESX Server, introduced in 2001, brought virtualization to data center servers, enabling enterprises to consolidate multiple physical servers onto fewer, more fully utilized machines.

Microsoft entered the virtualization market with Virtual PC (acquired from Connectix in 2003) and later Virtual Server. While less sophisticated than VMware's offerings, Microsoft's entry signaled virtualization's importance and mainstream acceptance.

Open source virtualization also developed during this period. Xen, developed at the University of Cambridge, offered paravirtualization that required operating system modifications but provided efficient performance. Xen would later be adopted by Amazon for its Elastic Compute Cloud service, launched just after this period ended.

By 2005, virtualization had proven its value for development environments, server consolidation, and disaster recovery. The technology's full impact would unfold in subsequent years with cloud computing, but the groundwork was laid during this decade.

Enterprise Software Evolution

Enterprise software matured significantly during this decade. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems from SAP, Oracle, and others integrated business processes across organizations. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems emerged as a distinct category, with Siebel Systems (later acquired by Oracle) and Salesforce leading the market.

Database systems evolved to handle increasing data volumes and complexity. Oracle maintained its dominant position in enterprise databases, while Microsoft SQL Server gained ground in the mid-market. Open source databases, particularly MySQL and PostgreSQL, became viable alternatives for many applications.

Web-based enterprise applications began displacing traditional client-server architectures. Browser-based interfaces reduced deployment and maintenance complexity, enabling faster rollouts and easier updates. While early web applications were limited compared to desktop software, improving web technologies steadily closed the gap.

The application server middleware market consolidated around Java EE (Enterprise Edition) and Microsoft's .NET platform. These platforms provided standardized frameworks for building and deploying enterprise applications, simplifying development while enabling scalability and reliability.

Data Center Expansion

The internet's explosive growth drove massive data center expansion. Companies like Yahoo, Google, and later Amazon built vast facilities housing thousands of servers. These data centers developed new approaches to cooling, power distribution, and system management that pushed beyond traditional enterprise practices.

Rack-mounted servers replaced tower systems in data centers, enabling higher density and easier management. Blade servers, introduced by RLX Technologies in 2001 and later adopted by major vendors, pushed density even further by sharing power supplies, cooling, and networking across multiple server modules.

Power and cooling became critical constraints. Data centers consumed enormous amounts of electricity, both for running servers and for air conditioning to remove waste heat. The industry began developing metrics like Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) to measure and improve efficiency, though these efforts would intensify in subsequent years.

High-performance computing clusters using commodity hardware emerged as alternatives to traditional supercomputers. The Beowulf cluster model, using networked standard PCs running Linux, demonstrated that competitive supercomputing performance could be achieved at a fraction of traditional costs. Google's infrastructure exemplified this approach at massive scale.

Legacy and Impact

The computing platform evolution of 1995-2005 established foundations that persist to the present day. Windows XP's interface paradigms still influence modern operating systems. The shift toward laptops continued until they displaced desktops for most users. Open source software became integral to technology infrastructure worldwide. Virtualization technology enabled cloud computing.

The period also highlighted the pace of technological change and the difficulty of prediction. Intel's confident projections of 10 GHz processors proved wrong. Microsoft's dominance, seemingly unassailable in 2000, would face increasing challenges from web-based applications, mobile platforms, and open source alternatives. The computing landscape at the decade's end looked quite different from what anyone might have predicted at its beginning.

Understanding this evolution illuminates both the origins of current computing platforms and the patterns of technological change that continue to reshape the industry. The interplay between hardware capabilities, software innovation, business models, and user needs that drove this decade's transformation continues to drive computing evolution today.