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Microsoft is Dead (2007)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#21

Post by ddeck »

caiob wrote: post #8
adamconroy wrote: post #4

It is an insightful piece but nothing annoys me more than sensationalism. Its click bait and I am annoyed I got sucked into reading it and annoyed that I feel compelled to waste time commenting. Anyway, if it isn't obvious, the article's credibility is killed by the use of the word dead. Microsoft clearly isn't dead it just isn't the biggest player on the internet, and isn't really a player in the start up space.

Microsoft isn't dead. ------ . They aren't big players on the web, start up space, mobile nor hardware. A bit contradictory, no?

I don't see why. Microsoft had $77bn in revenue last year, with net income of ~$22bn. Revenue has grown every year for the last five years and last year's was their highest ever.

Not being large players in the areas mentioned doesn't imply that they are somehow "dead".

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#22

Post by joeguilmette »

eldavido wrote: post #10

It's really interesting how in 2007, I believed (as did pg, seemingly) that the web would eventually overtake desktop software. Fast forward seven years, and some of the biggest names in software (Instagram, Lyft) have completely abandoned the web for "desktop" (really, native) software. That so much code ships directly to mobile devices says a lot about the power of centralized app stores and truly sandboxed install…

Instagram and Lyft are the biggest names in software?

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#23

Post by nitrogen »

primitivesuave wrote: post #18

The most common form of Microsoft-hate usually centers around how a company of such gargantuan size makes such gargantuan fuck-ups. But this is to be expected of companies of gargantuan size, and is certainly not limited to Microsoft alone (although recently they've had more than their fair share). My qualm with Microsoft is all the little things that they let slip through. Little things like having a control panel w…

I for one preferred the old control panel, and disable category view on any Windows machine I have to use.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#25

Post by mehwoot »

yzzxy wrote: post #20
mehwoot wrote: post #5

Microsoft as the concept of an all powerful dominating IT company is dead, and nothing has or will replace it. The company itself is still doing fine- they still make roughly twice the profit google did last financial year.

Is that just net profit, or does it account for growth? Net profit is not always a good metric for a large company's performance, as there are a lot of incentives to keep that number down and invest money back into the business (such as taxes). Amazon, for example, almost always operates near or at a loss from a quarterly or yearly perspective, but makes huge growth as business.

True, I haven't looked deeply into the financials so I don't know what they are doing with their money. Microsoft's profit margin looks a lot better than google's so maybe google is reinvesting a lot.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#26

Post by blntechie »

primitivesuave wrote: post #18

The most common form of Microsoft-hate usually centers around how a company of such gargantuan size makes such gargantuan fuck-ups. But this is to be expected of companies of gargantuan size, and is certainly not limited to Microsoft alone (although recently they've had more than their fair share). My qualm with Microsoft is all the little things that they let slip through. Little things like having a control panel w…

Wasn't control panel decently organized even in Windows XP SP2? Honestly, I don't see much difference between Mac's System Preferences now and Control Panel of Windows XP era.

Searching these settings sucked in XP but Windows 7 resolved that.

Windows 8 is one thing I can agree with you. It made using the PC unnecessarily hard for mouse and keyboard users.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#27

Post by spaceborn »

adamconroy wrote: post #4

It is an insightful piece but nothing annoys me more than sensationalism. Its click bait and I am annoyed I got sucked into reading it and annoyed that I feel compelled to waste time commenting. Anyway, if it isn't obvious, the article's credibility is killed by the use of the word dead. Microsoft clearly isn't dead it just isn't the biggest player on the internet, and isn't really a player in the start up space.

> the article's credibility is killed by the use of the word dead

How? The author clearly doesn't mean "out of business" when he says "dead". He means that what Microsoft once was, or what it represented, is dead. The idea once conveyed by the word "Microsoft" is dead. It's not sensationalist clickbait, it's a metaphor.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#28

Post by beefman »

eldavido wrote: post #10

It's really interesting how in 2007, I believed (as did pg, seemingly) that the web would eventually overtake desktop software. Fast forward seven years, and some of the biggest names in software (Instagram, Lyft) have completely abandoned the web for "desktop" (really, native) software. That so much code ships directly to mobile devices says a lot about the power of centralized app stores and truly sandboxed install…

The critical characteristic of the desktop here isn't its use of native code. It's more the local filesystem. Many mobile apps use network data. From this perspective they have more in common with web apps than with desktop software.

Despite this, I'm inclined to agree that the web is threatened. The desktop may be defined by local files but the web wasn't defined by remote ones. It was more about the culture. More about anyone-can-publish. To me, that's the baby at risk in the mobile bathwater.

That, and any aspect of personal computing that can't be performed on a phone. Which is most of them. I'll stick with the hemorrhoids and circadian disruption, thanks.

My wife and I were talking about this the other night: It's not that people who learned to compute on the desktop are abandoning it for mobile. It's that most people couldn't handle desktop computing in the first place. It's too abstract (dare I say difficult?). So the mobile revolution is really about the unwashed masses computing for the first time. Perhaps that's why mobile apps and operating systems eerily remind me of soap operas and reality TV.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#30

Post by djulius »

beerglass wrote: post #14

(sorry if I sound like a phony or worse suckup when I say this, but) PG is one of the smartest, ahead-of-his-times guy of our generation!

Yes you do, but nevermind, you're just like the vast majority of commenters here.

Btw thanks for your contribution, very interesting.

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