It handled stuff like authentication, user management, provisioning, security, compliance, etc. It had a fantastic developer experience and was beloved by developers and at the same time loved by IT. It allowed developers to focus exclusively on product features, and it seamlessly took care of administrative needs of corporate IT.

It was called Microsoft Windows. :)

But in today's era, everything has moved to the cloud and that's made the situation fragmented. There's over a dozen IdP and even more directory systems and logging systems. There's no source of truth! In order to build an app for enterprise, you have to write all of this boilerplate integration code. And right now every company does it themselves in-house.

The goal for WorkOS is to handle all the complicated undifferentiated complexity that every workplace app needs. It runs "under the hood" and lets you focus on building unique product features. It's a standard set of interfaces and features shared across applications.

That's the role of the operating system and that's why we call it an OS. :)