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Microsoft is Dead (2007)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#91

Post by mbruce »

blntechie wrote: post #26
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.

One can classify sw development companies into dev centric or UI centric. Microsoft is the former. Tivo, Apple ( more to apple than this though) and some others are User centric.

It refers to where the seat of power is in the company which defines strategy and envelops products. A dev centric company like Microsoft does not become User centric by hiring a UI designer..

Hence, Windows UI will always be sub par. USer centric design is very deep, not superficially changeable, and can't be simply bolted on.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#92

Post by jessedhillon »

angryasian wrote: post #60
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 thought all the microsoft hate came from the anti competitive behaviour like - embrace, extend and extinguish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish , along with documented anti competitive behavior http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft and similar patent trolling against linux and most recent android.

People born when the antitrust lawsuit was prosecuted would now be in college. So I would expect that if what you said is true, going forward, MS hate explained by those reasons would decrease. It would be like people in their 30s today holding a grudge against IBM for their role in the PCs v. clones battle.

Edit: I suspect the problem for MS is not lingering hate from the early-mid 90s, but more one of fading into irrelevance among people who are today 18-25 y/o

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#93

Post by robmcm »

insaneirish wrote: post #73
Beltiras wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually rephrasing my point, using the quote. Sheding money as dividends means Apple is not hungry. Having no visionary guide to quell the aversion of risk, Apple is no longer foolish. I'm a bit embarrassed having to explain it.

Their war chest will remain strategically as big as it needs to be. The amount of cash they have is ridiculous. And while an Icahn sized stock buy back is probably too much, their current buy back makes all the sense in the world. The stock is tremendously undervalued. You can't say it more eloquently than Warren Buffet: "If you could buy dollar bills for 80 cents, it's a very good thing to do." [1] [Disclosure: I am…

Not to mention most of that cash is overseas, and it would be extremely costly to pull in onshore. They actually took a loan to pay out the dividends as it would be cheaper than paying the tax required to onshore their overseas monies.

I expect if all that money was in the US they would be spending it on something else. There are only so many fancy stores with expensive glass you can build overseas.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#94

Post by TwoBit »

spaceborn wrote: post #27
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.

Well he may mean that, but that's not what comes to mind when most people think of the word "dead." And picking that particular word to use as liberally as he does comes across as overly dramatic.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#95

Post by Goopplesoft »

aeturnum wrote: post #65
ddeck wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

No one means 'dead' like RIM, they mean 'dead' like IBM. IBM is doing great - they're making lots of money in the service industry, they have a good research division, etc. They also haven't made an impact in the consumer space for years, and they probably never will again. They're just a different animal now. When PG wrote this, that's what Microsoft was. They were irrelevant in all the areas where interesting thing…

The fact that a large number of comments here are clarifying what he means by 'dead' is indicative of this baity nature of it. He specifically chose to say "Microsoft is dead" not "Microsoft has lost mindshare", and now its conveniently providing him protection by interpretation.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#97

Post by TwoBit »

aeturnum wrote: post #65
ddeck wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

No one means 'dead' like RIM, they mean 'dead' like IBM. IBM is doing great - they're making lots of money in the service industry, they have a good research division, etc. They also haven't made an impact in the consumer space for years, and they probably never will again. They're just a different animal now. When PG wrote this, that's what Microsoft was. They were irrelevant in all the areas where interesting thing…

His use of the word "dead" seems a bit dramatic, though the online dictionary has one definition of dead that is: "lacking power or effect"

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#99

Post by sz4kerto »

coldtea wrote: post #74
LeicaLatte wrote: post #48

Pretty terrible title considering Xbox 360 had taken off in 2006. Not one mention of Xbox in the whole post, indicating how much PG is out of touch. Xbox took gaming to next level, especially online gaming and managed to build a great ecosystem for games. The younger ones, in the last line, are all actually playing on Xbox. Microsoft has greater identification among younger people as brand than say, Apple given their…

> Pretty terrible title considering Xbox 360 had taken off in 2006. Not one mention of Xbox in the whole post, indicating how much PG is out of touch. Yes, clearly he's not a 17-something gamer. He also focused on things that matter. In Microsoft's bottom lime, the Xbox is marginal at best. For ages it has not even be profitable. Every gamer could as well only use an Xbox, and it still wouldn't matter much for the ki…

> In Microsoft's bottom lime, the Xbox is marginal at best. In other comments people argue that Microsoft is dead despite their bottom line, because bottom line is not what matters. (pg essentially says the same)

Now you say Xbox does not matter because it produces marginal income only?

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#100

Post by [deleted] »

nullgeo wrote: post #67
xarien wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my windows partition, I actually quite enjoy the move from win 7 to win 8. Here's a few things that I've taken a liking to: 1) Boot into desktop mode. This was introduced in 8.1 and definitely better for my uses than having to open a desktop from the metro UI in 8.0. 2) Win-f, I used to use win-r quite a bit to run programs quickly. However, with the changes MS has made with caching, win-f is just as fast and sav…

Windows 7 also ships with Powershell.

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