Hi,
so, the question at this time is: what will all these hundreds of different iterations of Operating Systems do differently in the next few months or years for the world that they could not have done over the last thirty or so years.
When looking back at what Win3.0 became, basically it's like this:
They (MS) launch a new OS "flavor". Some weeks later, the first 3rd party tools arise that fill in the gaps of what MS missed or delivered poorly. Upon the next release, these tools were incorporated by MS in a poor manner on their own, but in the same time, MS changed the interfaces so that the 3rd party stuff does not work any more. But, as MS has again failed to fill in the new gaps, a new 3rd party something will arise.
With OS's, MS does three things for years: 1) retain control 2) avoid competition 3) undermine standards
Innovation? Nope. MS does not innovate. Almost everything they came up with in OS successors was the washed-out flavor of something somebody else invented. If it's file systems, active directory or whatever. The only thing they really do good is to make their parts work together.
For the other OS's? Did they innovate? Mac: Yes, def, merely at the design point of view but also with doing a OS that runs Linux without people caring about - that's a damn good job. Think of that in matters to eCS... as for Linux? I can't tell. I don't care. Their main invention was the fact that it's free and community-driven. I will start to take Linux for serious if "they" manage to give me CD that I can install without having to find myself editing config files.
And I don't like Linux' communities attitude to reinvent the wheel and deliver software that basically can do everything but needs changing 4 different config files and a 3-line-wide commandline argument instead of providing 2 or 3 selectable default configurations that work in 98% of the cases.
As for eCS and innovation... hm. We're basically only "meetoo" wherever possible, aren't we? Voyager certainly is innovation... to some extent. The basic question is: What is innovation? How do you want to measure it?
Talking about measurement and coming back to the question: What have all these things done for mankind in the last decades? It has changed communication, the way we interact and how we connect to each other (see using this forum for instance). What else? Nothing I'm afraid. Still people are starving on this planet, diseases are still not cured, the rich get richer, well... and still human rights is something where room is left for innovation and improvement, not to talk about environment. Hey, BTW: Where's the paperless office they promised 10 years ago, heck?
To summarize IT since the 1980s: If I wouldn't make my living out of IT, I could pretty well do without I guess.

Cheers,
Thomas