I think what you're saying is totally correct, if you're going to be spending a lot of money on a computer, you need to make sure it can actually do the stuff you need it to, and in the 90's that does more or less imply Microsoft Office compatibility.
Still, I do kind of wonder if SGI had actually tried to penetrate this market, that maybe they could have made this work. They could have licensed and ported some of these applications over themselves, and if they had gotten big enough then maybe some of these companies would have ported these things over.
It's tough to say.
