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Microsoft is Dead

paulgraham.com

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Re: Microsoft is Dead

#101

Post by jjrs »

apansari wrote: post #47

Paul, excellent article. I have two additional reasons behind why Microsoft is "dead." Reason (5): Steve Ballmer took over from Bill Gates as CEO in Jan 2000. Chief Sales Guy takes over from Chief Egghead and the company stops building products for its real users. Reason (6): Web 1.0 hiring. Microsoft hired a huge number of people in 1998-2001, people who were too stupid or incompetent to get a job pretty much anywhe…

It's true...what bright, iconoclastic young thinker applies for a job at microsoft these days? It's a stuffy drone corporate gig, and those are the people that'll gravitate to it.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#102

Post by BearOfNH »

BrandonM wrote: post #87
theoutlander wrote: post #84

Windows has its quirks, but it is still the OS regular users choose. Visual Studio (THE BEST PRODUCT FROM MSFT!) beats everything out there! Although, my startup is not using ANY Microsoft technology, I am using Windows to code! Unix is GREAT for server-side....terrible for client-side and Windows is GREAT for client-side, but terrible on server-side! Google owns search but they are losing focus, just like MSFT. Reme…

If you think that Unix is terrible for client-side, then I don't think you've been working in Linux for long. How about the ability to install any of 20,000 programs from a convenient package/portage/rpm directory for free in seconds? How about updating every single program on your computer, including the OS, and recompiling everything, with one command? And as for programming, whenever I'm working in Visual Studio,…

I think Windows Vista (tm) is going to go down in history as the best thing that ever happened to Linux. MS has done the equivalent of pointing the pistol straight at their shoes.

"...How about the ability to install any of 20,000 programs from a convenient package/portage/rpm directory for free in seconds?..."

Well, I tell you, it's just not that simple. Linux distributions may or may not work. Just yesterday (Friday) I installed Ubuntu Drake (you know, the STABLE version) only to find it boots to ... a command line. No graphical desktop. Command 'startx' unrecognized. Try to install xserver-xorg. It appears to succeed but startx complains about font 'fixed' not found. I Google some forums, they say font directories have moved, but by golly I can't find the new directories the forums mention. I'm not alone, but no further advice is to be found. Just for fun I try to install ubuntu-desktop in the early afternoon only to find the installation grinding on for a couple hours then dying with my network partner disconnecting the logical link. The better part of a day wasted trying what should be a simple installation. Right.

If you find Linux installs fine and upgrades painlessly, then I'm happy for you. But don't claim Linux makes MY life any easier. In return, I won't demand support from providers of free software.

Maybe MS has the bad interfaces, but they work where others fail. You've got to give them some credit for that. Of course, this can all change with Vista and maybe even XP eventually. And eventually, when XP is bloated with DRM, maybe even Ubuntu will boot my system to a graphical desktop.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#103

Post by jjrs »

jellerbee wrote: post #76
mukund wrote: post #5

Well what hurts me is the thing they have forced people like me to stick to MSFT. Atleast in our univ, they have exclusive tie up with MSFT and they install 99.99% windows only. Its rather 0.01% apple. But some who have admin access put on linux. Most of standard mech engg softwares run on windows. MSFT gives their products at dead cheap prices ... as low as $5 a CD. These dirty tactics are seeing them ahead, but it…

So let me get this straight: Microsoft offers your university worthless software that provides no value to end users. The university knows its worthless software, you know its worthless, but the university is forced to buy it anyway because the dirty rotten scoundrels at Microsoft set the price so low. University S/W Buyer: "We have to buy some MS Software." University S/W Boss: "Why?" University S/W Buyer: "Its $5.0…

kind of. look at it from the competitor's end. they can't afford to sell at $5, they'd go under. It's like wal-mart putting mom and pop record stores out of business by selling CDs at cost.

So MS keeps their software standard at colleges, which influences students' buying habits (god forbid they grow accustomed to Mac or Linux and lose their fear of them).

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#104

Post by polibius »

I agree with you: Microsoft is dead, long ago. However you fail to note that another famous victim of Google, Javascript and broadband is Apple itself. In fact desktop software in general is dead. Word processing, spreadsheets, e-mail, image editing, project management and many other traditional desktop killer-apps are now offered for free on the web. Let's face it: only professional graphic designers and architects really need the power of Adobe Creative Suite or Autodesk Autocad and, as a consequence, a Windows or Apple machine.

How people are coping with this new reality? There are, in my view, two different attitudes. People more sensitive to hype are buying expensive Apple laptops even when they are simply overkill for their real needs. Programmers buying Apple laptops just to run Textmate are similar to fashion victims buying the latest Gucci handbag. Other people are more rational and choose cheap but sound Linux boxes (especially the Ubuntu flavor).

I think 90% of computer users can live with Ubuntu without any problem. Of course the desktop software libraries for Linux are very meagre compared to Microsoft and Apple's universes but we've just stated that desktop software is dead: web apps' user experience is the same on every platform. The operating system really doesn't matter. Don't you have other needs to satisfie instead of buying an expensive and useless Apple fashion laptop? Buy a cheap laptop, install Linux and enjoy your life!

And what about the business side of the moon? What will happen when companies will suddenly discover they don't longer need desktop software? Companies are more cost-conscious and I assume they will migrate to Linux en masse.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#105

Post by jjrs »

danielha wrote: post #78

They are so enormous that they stifle themselves. Sometimes Microsoft seems to put out something, from some division , that makes one think: "Hey, this is a good move -- maybe they're starting to get it." But before one can utter those words, another of Microsoft's many appendages does something to completely nullify those sentiments. That "appendage" is usually the head itself. Microsoft often acquires a good thing…

what are some examples of that?

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#106

Post by fuzzyman »

I think the death of the desktop is much exaggerated.

AJAX is better than the last generation of web-apps, but the browser still basically sucks as a platform. Latency is a bitch. :-)

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#107

Post by niklas72 »

My problem with this essay is that it could just as well have been written in 1985, 1990, 1995 or 2000. Microsoft has always been slow in responding to new threats.

1985: Windows 1.0 was a totally insufficient response to the Macintosh. There were plenty of other Window Managers too, all superior (oops, not Topview, now that was an inferior product). Lotus and Borland is going to kill Microsoft with superior applications. 1990: Microsoft put out Windows 3.0. Still DOS inside. ACE consortium wants to kill Microsoft with Motif. 1995: Netscape is the latest presumptive Microsoft killer, IE is an inferior product. Sun unveils Java, purported Microsoft killer. Windows 95 looks nice, still very much DOS at heart. Constant refrain during the latter 90's: Desktop Linux is going to kill Microsoft... 2000- The Web/Sony is going to kill Microsoft.

And it's not like the cool kids ran Microsoft products in 1990 or 1995 either. The tastes of an elite doesn't necessarily reflect the future of the broader market.As long as Apple won't let you run OSX on non-Apple hardware it can't be anything but a niche product.

Sure, Microsoft is vulnerable, but so is Google or Apple or any other company in this business. I don't know why Microsoft are underestimated so often, it might be that we root so much for the underdog that we fail to see what the big meanies strengths are.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#108

Post by rasputnik »

amichail wrote: post #28
brett wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would take an incredible amount of sack for Microsoft to deliberately break IE; there's no way they would ever take a risk like that and I really doubt it would play out like you think. Web based applications have way too much momentum. Initially the clueless would go without, but the backlash would be so severe in the development and tech communities that pretty soon the clueless would have a working alternative…

Even if Microsoft does not intentionally break IE, what incentive would it have to improve support for AJAX apps? For example, what incentive would it have to support an offline mode for AJAX apps?

People would keep using their browser.

That sort of trick used to work, once, when we all got our software off CDs on the cover of magazines. Firefox is a small download now. They won't try it twice.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#109

Post by rasputnik »

hello_moto wrote: post #11
gibsonf1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think PG's point isn't that MS will vanish or is vanishing from the current installed user base point of view (mainly their OS), but that they no longer control the direction of software development. This is a major opening for us Entrepreneurs that, as PG pointed out, has never happened before. MS Office is clearly under serious attack now, and I'm sure the OS will follow in a few years unless MS takes a major tac…

May I know whom attacking MS Office? Last time I checked, none of the online web two point ooh software can open big documents. These web-apps only match probably 20% of MS Office features and it's simply not enough these days when people are more tech-savvy than in the past.

For 80% of us, that 20% will do.
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