Microsoft is Dead • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#21

Post by kia » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 6:54 PM UTC

kbob wrote: post #7

Remember IBM? From 1960 through ~1985, IBM was the only answer for enterprise computing. And there really wasn't any other kind of computing then. IBM Research did everything from semiconductor research to databases to virtual machines. IBM was the hottest stock in the market in the 1960s, passing $600/share. (That's about $4,000 in today's money.) They eventually faded, as their customers moved to a combination of d…

I agree. The fact that you don't hear about an old big company that often doesn't mean it's dead. It has found it's business model and doing well in some not-that-hyped sector.

On the other hand, the fact that you hear about 'new-hot-startup' on all hi-tech sites doesn't mean it'll survive it's first year.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#22

Post by Hov » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 7:06 PM UTC

I understand he meant that nobody is scared of Microsoft anymore. I guess the question I have is, is there a company that exists that everybody IS scared of? No. So I rather chalk it up to a sign of the times.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#23

Post by ams6110 » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 7:07 PM UTC

patrickk wrote: post #8

I remember reading somewhere that IBM makes something like $8bn per year still from mainframe computer sales. If IBM are doing that - two major computer architecture iterations along the line - (client-server and now cloud coming along), then that bodes well for Microsoft's survival, but perhaps not their relevance. Startups aren't going to go after highly conservative organisations like banks who won't risk changing…

For pure transaction throughput, it's still hard to beat a mainframe. The hardware is optimized for it, and so is the software. They are a niche product but a very profitable one.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#24

Post by brudgers » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 7:18 PM UTC

zdw wrote: post #4

There are two Microsofts: - The one that does interesting, innovative stuff but a failure/modest success in the marketplace (online, xbox, sync interface for cars, zune, windows phone 7) - The "legacy" one that makes windows, office, and server apps, which makes a ton on licensing. Nobody likes "legacy" microsoft, and it's the most vulnerable, but also has the most momentum behind them. People develop on or support t…

>"Until the PC goes away, and there's a huge shift to do real work off our phones/tablets/other non-legacy devices, MS will most likely be dominant in terms of market share."

In the past year with Windows Phone and "the next Windows" support for ARM, they have shown just how competitive they intend to be in those markets. They have spent the last 10 years moving toward hardware independence via .NET, and they are shipping it.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#25

Post by AlexC04 » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 7:21 PM UTC

According to analytics, I've had 20,000 hits to my website in the last 30 days. 75% of those are reported to be running a windows operating system.

As much as I respect the interesting point of view presented in the article, I sometimes wonder if sites like Hacker News and Slashdot don't put us all into some sort of exceptionally nerdy bubble-think.

Like with the last week or so when everything I read seemed to say "google sucks", "lynch google", "burn and raze googles offices so they can never spam search results again"

What was the rest of the world's reaction to this seemingly endless flood of histrionic blog posts about broken google search results? Crickets chirped and a tumbleweed yawned with boredom.

Microsoft isn't dead. From what I see, in the last 30 days Microsoft is a minimum of 75% alive and we'd all be very much richer if we didn't forget that.

With the utmost respect of course.

Without exaggeration, hyperbole will literally be the death of us all.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#26

Post by savoy11 » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 7:21 PM UTC

The mere fact he says that is contradictory. If something is dead/not-relevant - people just not talk about it.

We have daily Microsoft dead posts here. Meanwhile Microsoft is far from dead, netting 6 billion in PROFIT each QUARTER. And growing steadily with 20% per year.

Get your common sense right. Microsoft is a revenue stream - XNA can make your code run on phones and XBox alike and you can profit twice with the same codebase. Use the eco-system, do not lose revenue stream out of stupid prejudice.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#27

Post by kingsidharth » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 7:32 PM UTC

> I know they seemed dangerous as late as 2001, because I wrote an essay then about how they were less dangerous than they seemed.

Didn't get it. They seemed dangerous because Paul wrote an essay?

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#28

Post by jdp23 » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 7:39 PM UTC

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #20

I remember when pg first wrote this. A lot of people misunderstood the headline. From the pg's Cliffs notes: "What I meant was not that Microsoft is suddenly going to stop making money, but that people at the leading edge of the software business no longer have to think about them." That's at http://paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html So the two definitions pg gave in 2007 were "You don't have have to be afraid of Micros…

When this came out I was still at Microsoft with a charter of "game changing strategies". There were (and still are) quite a few things that MS could do to reinvigorate itself, but the corporate culture keeps them from gathering momentum: the company's success came in a PC-oriented world, so they don't think from a phone, device, or web perspective; and the lack of understanding of win/win dynamics (which Google rode to success) means they're not able to leverage their huge assets. Since then, the ongoing loss of great people has deepened a huge generational hole. So yeah, this essay has held up real well.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#29

Post by Zak » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 7:47 PM UTC

wh-uws wrote: post #18

zdw wrote: post #4

There are two Microsofts: - The one that does interesting, innovative stuff but a failure/modest success in the marketplace (online, xbox, sync interface for cars, zune, windows phone 7) - The "legacy" one that makes windows, office, and server apps, which makes a ton on licensing. Nobody likes "legacy" microsoft, and it's the most vulnerable, but also has the most momentum behind them. People develop on or support t…

I feel like products like Windows 7 and the Kinect among other things are a sign of a rally from the Microsoft camp. Agree / disagree?

I don't think Win7 is a sign that MS is making a comeback; it's the final product that Vista was a massive public beta for. I don't know anyone who loves it - the usual opinion of people who choose to use it is "good enough".

The Kinect is pretty impressive though. I wonder what the per-unit cost is for MS - are they making a direct profit on sales?

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#30

Post by kenjackson » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 7:52 PM UTC

jdp23 wrote: post #28

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #20

I remember when pg first wrote this. A lot of people misunderstood the headline. From the pg's Cliffs notes: "What I meant was not that Microsoft is suddenly going to stop making money, but that people at the leading edge of the software business no longer have to think about them." That's at http://paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html So the two definitions pg gave in 2007 were "You don't have have to be afraid of Micros…

When this came out I was still at Microsoft with a charter of "game changing strategies". There were (and still are) quite a few things that MS could do to reinvigorate itself, but the corporate culture keeps them from gathering momentum: the company's success came in a PC-oriented world, so they don't think from a phone, device, or web perspective; and the lack of understanding of win/win dynamics (which Google rode…

Jon, as someone from MS (and with great repute), I'd be curious to get your take on something I've heard from ex and current MS employees I talk to regularly.

One issue that seems to come up a fair bit (often not directly) is that MS has a hypercritical culture, where there's always a reason NOT do something. Since they had big money makers in Office and Windows, no one really noticed for a long time..

I hear constant grumbling that people with ideas get their ideas shot down with lots of criticism. Many of these people say that MS would have killed the iPhone, iPad, and Wii had they been proposed at MS in final form.

It sounds like a company made of bright people who have no problem finding issues with products, but less good at fighting for new innovation against these same critics.