Decline of DESQview
DESQview did not provide a graphical user interface (GUI). While Quarterdeck did provide suites of programming libraries and utilities to support the development of software to use its features these never became widely popular. (DESQview's ability to run most software with no modification and the cost of "run-time" licenses, combined with the costs of the development suites themselves made this an unreasonable combination for commercial shrink-wrapped software publishers and vendors.)
Microsoft released Microsoft Windows version 3.0 with its own memory management and multitasking features. While DESQview was far faster, smaller, and more stable, it was more expensive and didn't include support for the graphical features of MS Windows.
The decline of QEMM started with the bundling of a memory manager in Digital Research's DR DOS 5.0, released in 1990. To catch on, Microsoft included its own EMM386 in MS-DOS 5.0, while previously the memory management functionality was only available with Windows. QEMM could still be used instead, notably with Windows 3.1x, but it only provided incremental benefits. Sales of QEMM declined. In August 1994, after three quarters of losses, the company laid off 25% of their employees and the CEO, president, and founder Terry Myers resigned.
As users moved from DESQview to other platforms, notably Windows 3.x and OS/2, third party utility authors wrote utility programs that emulated some DESQview API functions to allow suitably equipped DOS programs to co-operate with these OS. The most notable were TAME (for Windows), and OS/2SPEED (for OS/2)
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—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“The chief misery of the decline of the faculties, and a main cause of the irritability that often goes with it, is evidently the isolation, the lack of customary appreciation and influence, which only the rarest tact and thoughtfulness on the part of others can alleviate.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)