I think they could have turned it into a product if they had wanted to.
They had, however, a very, very good reason not to - it probably would not have been backwards compatible with Win32, so the huge amount of third-party software that exists today could not have run on it. And that - whether one likes Windows or not - is a very compelling selling point.
So things they learned building Midori will trickle back into the Windows/.Net world. I agree that that is what a good research department is for.
But still, it would have been nice to take Midori for a test drive and see what it would have been like.
They had, however, a very, very good reason not to - it probably would not have been backwards compatible with Win32, so the huge amount of third-party software that exists today could not have run on it. And that - whether one likes Windows or not - is a very compelling selling point.
So things they learned building Midori will trickle back into the Windows/.Net world. I agree that that is what a good research department is for.
But still, it would have been nice to take Midori for a test drive and see what it would have been like.