Well, the first part of my comment was a joke, and the second part was only asserting that Microsoft wasn't going to go away soon, because they're a de facto standard. I'm not saying that I worry about them for my own projects, or that you should for yours. :)
My apologies. I didn't get that "more seriously" indicated that the first part was completely tongue-in-cheek.
Oh, no problem. I thought that more people would notice that it's lifted directly from the article. On the other hand, I guess it's quite possible that it isn't funny. :)
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.
Maybe there arn't any wizardly hackers applying for a job at Microsoft , but there are smart people interested in a steady pay check.
Please let's continue not to care about Mikrosopht (sorry, I don't recall the correct spelling, and I'm no slave of internet search either, but to me it sounds much antique, so I hope my guess is right...).
Well, you said Apple's board made a mistake - however, I think it was a necessary move. If you think about all the great movements in the history of mankind, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad, Moses, etc, all of them had to be kicked out, suffer in the desert, receive enlightenment/burning bushes/next/pixar and then come on back as the conquering hero. Would Jobs be as good as he is now, if he didn't do Next and Pixar? Maybe, maybe not.
I agree with the article in general, but you lost some credibility by equating Snipshot to Photoshop. I realize that you have an investment to promote, but please.
If PG has something worthwhile to say, it is true whether he has a vested interested in the truth or not. If it is false, it can be debunked without questioning his motives.
Here is what I have observed about people. In general, people with vested interests do not lie. What they do is pick and choose the truths they want to share.
So someone with an investment in an online photo editor might say that "people are now writing online photo editing applications," but is unlikely to say, "that are faster and have more features than Photoshop."
Is that bad? Of course not. There are this other group of people with no alleged interest in the subject. They are called journalists. And you know what? My observation is that they are much less reliable than peopel with a "vested interest."
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 applicat…
No, he is not saying microsoft is vulnerable, but that no one fears microsoft any more. In the past, if you were trying to get VC money, one of the questions they would ask you is - why should I fund you? Can't Microsoft do this?
That question is not asked today, even as a few years back. I was trying to get a patch management company going, and that 8 or so VCs I met didn't even asked if this is something Microsoft would get into.
And from what I understand, today's questions are more along the lines of - how can you beat google.
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?
Anything that Microsoft perceives itself to be bad at, and wants to be better at.
1) xbox (though, at this point it has not really been adsorbed back in yet)
2) IE
3) MS Office
4) MS Windows
5) MS-DOS
6) Hotmail
Java used to be my hero, ever since the day I learned it would manage memory for me, while still scaling to the heights demanded by the enterprise. For 10 years, Java was my whole world. Servlets, old EJB, new EJB, JSP, JDBC, Spring, Hibernate, JSF, and all the rest of it. Keeping up with enterprise Java was a chore. I'd learn to program EJB 1 and by the time I finally figured it out, they were pushing EJB 2. Or I'd…
So what's next? Shall I make the same joke on you using Common Lisp and the the user named pg can then pull up Arc...?
Yes. That's how this industry works: everything closed, expensive, and exclusive inexorably becomes open, cheap or even free, and inclusive.
dunno which place you pulled the Mac/Linux observation from but I can assure you that finally Microshaft are actually getting it right, and company IT departments are finally realising that TCO and facilities is tipped in MS's favour. I would thus say that your observation comes from clique formation, and perhaps doesn't reflect the overall industry. I freelance IT for organisations which go all the way from accountancy firms, to car sales chains, market chains, Art and Commercial offices, and realtime tracking/monitoring of heavy equipment. Out of all those (and there are often several under each heading,)I visit one Citrix office but they are going to Terminal Server ASAP. One company is busily switching from OSS server structures to Windows 2003 Servers. Cannot argue with it - MS often comes out cheaper, there is definitely more skill in the arena than there is skill in the Linux / OSX area, and tens of thousands of users still want a cute Window Start button. Out of some 20 businesses I do on demand IT for, one - only one - is a Mac shop, and a shambles it is too. They are graphics artists. One shop has custom boxes at the mineface talking to Windows 2003 Servers back at the office. One uses their own proprietary Application between mobile trucks and huge Wintel servers. The other 18 are MS shops doing everything from running fish markets all over town on RDP links, to monitoring, to aerial surveying, to good old accountancy under a wall to wall Windows environment. I see Linux boxes as routers and firewalls, Macs as the liberal arts students' foolproof workstation. Everyone I work for who is serious, runs Wintel machines. And I work across a wide sector of a fairly large city.