Microsoft has rarely been the innovator in markets. The company purchased what became MS-DOS, the PC's first operating system, from another firm. The graphical user interface for Windows was based on the Apple Macintosh, itself an Apple imitation of Xerox.

Excel, the Microsoft spreadsheet, is an imitation of Lotus 123, which was in turn an imitation of VisiCalc. Microsoft Word was introduced into the market long after several other popular word processors. Microsoft's PowerPoint imitated programs such as Harvard Graphics or Freelance, and Microsoft used acquisitions to buy itself into the relational-database market, where it is a late entrant.