Even though Windows 98 was an overall long-term success, the blue screen that popped up during their live demo left a memorable impression, and arguably led to a significantly slower adoption.
Wikipedia that describes this as such [0]:
> ...when presentation assistant Chris Capossela plugged a USB scanner in, the operating system crashed, displaying a Blue Screen of Death. Bill Gates remarked after derisive applause and cheering from the audience, "That must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet." Video footage of this event became a popular Internet phenomenon.
In a subsequent paragraph about the sales Wikipedia says:
>In the first year of its release, Windows 98 ... had a market share of 17.2 percent, compared to Windows 95's 57.4 percent
And it's definitely not just me who still remembers this. There's for example an article from the Register reviewing it 20 years after [1].
So in other words, no it’s ultimately not important if the idea is good, which Bard seems to be.
It seems more indicative of leadership quality that Google had this in their back pocket, ready to go shortly after someone else did the market validation for them.
Wikipedia that describes this as such [0]:
> ...when presentation assistant Chris Capossela plugged a USB scanner in, the operating system crashed, displaying a Blue Screen of Death. Bill Gates remarked after derisive applause and cheering from the audience, "That must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet." Video footage of this event became a popular Internet phenomenon.
In a subsequent paragraph about the sales Wikipedia says:
>In the first year of its release, Windows 98 ... had a market share of 17.2 percent, compared to Windows 95's 57.4 percent
And it's definitely not just me who still remembers this. There's for example an article from the Register reviewing it 20 years after [1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_98?wprov=sfla1
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2018/04/20/windows_98_comdex_bso...