DOS or CP/M needed a better way of managing files as soon as hard disks appeared for PCs. The simplicity of using UNIX-style directory trees was likely important in the era from MS-DOS 2.0 in 1983 to the advent of Windows 3.0 in 1990. So if DR were the dominant PC OS supplier, they'd have had to provide some kind of hierarchical directory system in the early 1980s.
Even if DR had prospered and become the alternate-history equivalent of Microsoft, I doubt they would have bought DEC. Well-run software businesses don't buy ailing hardware manufacturers, especially ones with such a baroque range of outdated hardware as DEC had in the 1990s. More recently, Oracle's purchase of Sun has been quite unsuccessful, although Oracle were saved by the success of their cloud offerings.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-07-13 03:54 pm (UTC)Even if DR had prospered and become the alternate-history equivalent of Microsoft, I doubt they would have bought DEC. Well-run software businesses don't buy ailing hardware manufacturers, especially ones with such a baroque range of outdated hardware as DEC had in the 1990s. More recently, Oracle's purchase of Sun has been quite unsuccessful, although Oracle were saved by the success of their cloud offerings.