There’s no more tedious subject on the internet than an endless discussion of which companies are or are not innovative. If you doubt it, pick a random Tech.pinions comment thread; if the thread is of any length the subject is sure to come up.
The main reason these arguments are so fruitless is that people are not bothering to define their terms, so they end up arguing more about what innovation is than who does it. So to end the year by rushing in where angels fear to tread, I want to take a look at the most innovative companies of the personal computer era, going back to around 1980.
