Software Abstraction - business success stories

Couple of abstractions in the recent memory and their successes

1. Operating Systems abstract the hardware layer and present usability to end users and developers alike. (Microsoft)
2. Compilers - abstracts the machine code in higher level language (IBM, Microsoft, SUN)
3. Virtual Machines abstracts hardware & OS for generic machine codes running over it - (SUN - Java; Microsoft - C#)
4. Virtualization technology (vmware, Citrix - xen; Microsoft - hyperV)

This is likely to grow - as people would like heterogeneous systems interworking.