I ran GEM on some of my early computers. Also bought both Windows 1 and Windows 2 to try. GEM was clearly superior from a user stand point. Windows 3 shipped and they just disappeared.

I was really interested in how they would respond to the challenge. IBM was working publicly with Microsoft on OS/2 so they had to know the market was going to change. The only real surprise was when Microsoft went all in on marketing Windows 3 and the rise of Office.

Borland tried to compete against Office and got killed. Perhaps with a competent GUI operating system it might have been different.