> If you are that old, you will remember each product came with extensive manuals AND there was an actual customer support.

But even then, contemporaries outclassed Microsoft by a lot.

It was culture back then to provide printed user manuals, I still have some from Sun Microsystems because it was the best resource I found to learn how storage appliances should work and the technical trade-offs of them.

Fair enough, everyone delivered software in boxes and with 500 page manuals. I still maintain MS did invest a lot in the quality of their documentation and they cared about developers - otherwise the Petzold series would have never happened (or the MS Press for that matter).