The Microsoft Windows anticompetitive monopoly has likely made it harder for advances in computer UI to occur, much for the same reasons the QWERTY keyboard held back computer input advancements.
Twenty-five years ago, when it was clear that Microsoft's anticompetitive monopoly wasn't going to be remedied, I stated that Microsoft had set computing back 30 years. I now believe that to be under estimated by a factor of two to three.
At the time of my first estimate, I was mostly looking at UI...
...and mutitasking, and I was right about those as neither has caught up to the alternatives available up to the mid-nineties. However, I think we can also blame WinHEC for holding back hardware developments, and a lot of flawed software engineering has been started and perpetuated from Microsoft.
#MicrosoftSucks
