You can do it Microsoft way: build Windows as a GUI for DOS, capture many users, earn a lot of money, then pay best developers to develop Windows NT and merge it into a new OS. (user experience first, architecture later).
But you can do it the Apple way: make it good from inside out - including architecture, wait loooooooong looooooooong until users recognize all this, then get maaaany users and earn lot of money. (Hopefully you have survived until then.)
If you have luck, you can have both: good architecture inside and very good user experience...
But anyway I agree with the author, that many many solutions are over-engineered instead of just simple...
What the hell are you talking about? Windows NT was released in 1993, back when Apple was shipping System 7 and NeXT was shipping NeXTStep 3. Mac OS 9 didn't come out until 1999.
Yes, the comparison is not about some era (what each company did at the same specified time) but about the methodology (how each company handled a specific transition to a different OS).
But you can do it the Apple way: make it good from inside out - including architecture, wait loooooooong looooooooong until users recognize all this, then get maaaany users and earn lot of money. (Hopefully you have survived until then.)
If you have luck, you can have both: good architecture inside and very good user experience...
But anyway I agree with the author, that many many solutions are over-engineered instead of just simple...