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Microsoft is Dead

paulgraham.com

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Re: Microsoft is Dead

#241

Post by mojuba »

pg wrote: post #23
schoudha wrote: post #16

Microsoft is still and will likely continue to be the world's most profitable software company. OS X will not reach 20% global marketshare by the end of the decade and Goldman Sachs IBankers will still be punching away on MS Excel for the foreseeable future. What does it mean to be dead then? What I think Paul Graham is saying, and this is underscored by the notion of "being dangerous," is that Microsoft is no longer…

Microsoft was never the place new ideas and true innovation came from. But they did once have the power to shut down people who had them. They no longer do; that's what's changed.

At least they invented and marketed OLE. The importance of this technology seems to be underestimated. OLE for windowed environments is the same as the streams/pipes philosophy in UNIX. In fact OLE/COM is something that's still missing in UNIX (and don't tell me about gtk which is a shitty and buggy piece of software).

From GUI perspective MS did a lot of things that X and MacOS "adopted" or tried to adopt silently, so to say.

After all, MS does hire talented staff. Just don't underestimate them.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#242

Post by zackola »

Old news! Death to Microsoft! The more interesting question is do they really not realize they suck? When you have Google as the #1 search engine being used within Microsoft and iPods as the #1 music players being used by Microsoft employees, I find it very hard to believe they don't know they suck.

http://www.techweb.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189500876&cid=RSSfeed_TechWeb

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2005/02/66460

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#243

Post by tetley »

I find this unnecessary and to refer to Microsoft as being for Grandmas, I hope all the Grandmas land on this guys head and trample him. Such an unfortunate phrase for him to use. I sure hope Microsoft rises up and pounds h... out of such superegos.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#244

Post by tetley »

I find this unnecessary and to refer to Microsoft as being for Grandmas, I hope all the Grandmas land on this guys head and trample him. Such an unfortunate phrase for him to use. I sure hope Microsoft rises up and pounds h... out of such superegos.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#245

Post by rhue »

Dear Paul,

While you lay out several interesting point and are right on the fact that Microsoft is facing some serious challenges. It is not dead by any means and still exists in the game.

You point out some reasons Microsoft why is "dead": "AJAX and Javascript is the new programming model of choice" I am currently developing a web 2.0 venture namely UReporting. Our Project is based almost entirely on Microsoft technologies. We had the option to use both LAMP based development or ASP.Net/ MS Sql. We chose Microsoft as it served all our needs and then some. Mapping, mobile, streaming, AJAX, Scalability, Community building you name it we are doing it. I have nothing against Javascript or AJAX but I can assure you Microsoft technologies can do everything that AJAX or Javascripting can. Also Ajax for ASP.NET is widely avaialable and used. This is a view not from someone who funds ventures but an actual entreprenuer seeking to minimize costs and develop a scalable and efficient platform.

"Buy all the good "Web 2.0" startups. They could get substantially all of them for less than they'd have to pay for Facebook."

Interesting point especially coming from someone who funds such venture...

In conclusion, While microsoft is definately facing some challenges today (normal for all major businesses), there is no indication they are even close to where you claim them to be.

Have a Good Day

Danial Jameel www.UReporting.com

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#246

Post by Nakarti »

I don't think the desktop is dead, but I will agree that it's retired: It will pick up new jobs(programs) just for something to do, but it will be part-time(eg Openoffice) whereas the real effort will go to vacations(games) and hobbies like collecting videos(YouTube) which won't even always need so much effort. I'll stop because my thoughts aren't making sense anymore, but yes the Desktop is retired, and the desktop companies are dead. You can tell some of them(Adobe) know this because they're buying webtop application(Macromedia) companies to stay alive.

I just wish Flash would work better on Linux instead of worse.

And if I ever buy another prebuilt computer, it probably will be a Mac, since Linux doesn't get the same recognition or money for its similar market share.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#247

Post by bongokarl »

all the game-developers and 3d-technology-people use windows. they are pretty strong in this field. thats because osx and linux dont natively and fully support the gfx-hardware...

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#248

Post by pharbeson »

Maybe this is silly, but the only sentence I didn't really understand was "The situation is analogous to the writing of "literary theorists." I've tried to understand literary theory and had zero success. I just assumed that either I wasn't trying hard enough or just wasn't smart enough. But you suggest they _could_ make it clearer, and simply _don't bother_?! That would be...disappointing? Inexplicable?

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#249

Post by juancarlos »

I disagree to some extend. I rather see it as things don't disappear; they transformed.

Microsoft realized it would die if they didn't react with their environment. They know they where gonna get hit in their software department, so... While people were concerned with Microsoft and its monopoly in the OS market, they realized they needed to expand and eventually transform.

People, may I say they own the gaming industry, and Nintendo. But according to reg stats whichever gaming system comes out firsts wins the market. Hello Xbox360 ~ Microsoft's new empire.

Windows is dead. That is true.

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