Re: "if their strategy had been different in the 80's"
If that were the case, IBM might have filed a patent on their PC and we wouldn't have the Internet today, or smartphones, or much of anything else in computer tech because IBM would have stifled the market by forcing everyone to work with it at its prices.
Companies would have a few PCs, like in accounting, design and HR, but that would likely be all.
Maybe Apple would evolved very differently, and the war between PC and Mac would have given Apple a far greater share of the market, but we're still talking closed design here.
It is the fact that IBM never put a patent on its toy that birthed the computing world we have today.
And gave many of us our careers.
So thanks, IBM, for not having had today's patent lawyers on hand back then !