Windows 95 turns 15: Has Microsoft's OS peaked? | Beyond Binary - CNET News

Windows 95 turns 15: Has Microsoft's OS peaked? | Beyond Binary - CNET News: "Windows 95, which was separate from the company's business-oriented Windows NT product, added a number of features over its predecessors including better network support, the ability to send faxes (yes, there was a time when that was a big deal) along with basic audio recording, audio playback, and video playback tools. Features now thought of as core parts of Windows, such as the start menu and taskbar, also made their debut with Windows 95. Plus, it just looked a whole lot better graphically and was far more stable than past consumer versions of Windows.

Internet Explorer debuted around the same time, but was sold separately as part of Microsoft's Plus Pack for Windows 95. It was eventually bundled in directly with the operating system in an update to Windows 95 released the following year.

By the time Windows 95 was finally ushered off the market in 2001, it had become a fixture on computer desktops around the world.

'If you look at Windows 95, it was a quantum leap in difference in technological capability and stability,' Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald said at that time.

A decade and a half after Windows 95 hit the market, though, one question looms large for Windows? Are all its best days in the past?"