Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft is Dead (2007)

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 195 posts

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#131

Post by NAFV_P »

> Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops. It was the same in the audience at startup school. All the computer people use Macs or Linux now. Windows is for grandmas, like Macs used to be in the 90s. So not only does the desktop no longer matter, no one who cares about computers uses Microsoft's anyway.

Well, Apple's laptops, like their whole hardware range, look really nice and well made. My Toshiba Satellite is dusty, covered in bagel crumbs and stinks of roll-ups. I would be really embarrassed turning up in a public arena with a pig ugly piece of kit that looks like it has been used in a sewer.

Windows is still used by many businesses in the UK. That is the main reason I still have it on my laptop, most CV's are only accepted as .doc/.docx/.txt files.

The desktop no longer matters? Hell, the CLI is still alive and kicking. I find Vim works better in tty than in xterm.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#132

Post by higherpurpose »

Nilzor wrote: post #130

"no one who cares about computers uses Microsoft's anyway." That was a false statement in 2007 and is still today. I'm the evidence, if no one else. And I don't think I'm alone, although it does puzzle me when I see Microsoft evangelists at conferences holding speeches from Apple computers.

I do think Windows will become pretty irrelevant over the next 5 years, as Android and iOS get owned by billions of people. However, I agree that right now and for the past few years, there's a very strong bias towards Apple computers in Silicon Valley and in media offices, and they might think "Apple is everywhere", even though it's not.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#133

Post by higherpurpose »

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…

That's because the web disrupted native desktop, and native mobile is disrupting both web and native desktop. Native mobile is certainly not the same as native desktop. It's a completely new paradigm. The web might disrupt native mobile yet again in the future. And then perhaps native-glassware or whatever will disrupt web on mobile, and so on.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#135

Post by nebstrebor »

mbruce wrote: post #91
blntechie wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Correction: Tivo was User centric, but is now just sitting back and enjoying the patent royalties.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#136

Post by RegW »

Ygg2 wrote: post #115
nullgeo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 7 also ships with Powershell.

Did anyone found it usable? I struggled to automate some recursive copy/filter of files. I don't remember that task taking that long to automate on Linux.

It's a doddle. You just have to install Cygwin and do it in bash.

http://cygwin.com/

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#137

Post by Thiz »

Microsoft wanted to destroy the web, and they lost.

They tried to destroy linux, and they lost.

They tried to destroy apple, and they lost.

They tried to destroy android, and they lost.

That's why we, web, linux, apple, android fans hate microsoft with a passion.

While they succeeded in destroying so many other companies and technologies, we were there and we fought those fights.

We never forget.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#138

Post by _delirium »

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…

> Is it really possible that not a single person at Microsoft tried changing a setting on their Windows machine and realized how difficult it was to even find the setting?

Reportedly Bill Gates was one such person: http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/2008/06/24/full-text-an-...

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#139

Post by jader201 »

Thiz wrote: post #137

Microsoft wanted to destroy the web, and they lost. They tried to destroy linux, and they lost. They tried to destroy apple, and they lost. They tried to destroy android, and they lost. That's why we, web, linux, apple, android fans hate microsoft with a passion. While they succeeded in destroying so many other companies and technologies, we were there and we fought those fights. We never forget.

But seriously, aren't all competitors just trying to destroy each other?

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#140

Post by fauigerzigerk »

higherpurpose wrote: post #132
Nilzor wrote: post #130

"no one who cares about computers uses Microsoft's anyway." That was a false statement in 2007 and is still today. I'm the evidence, if no one else. And I don't think I'm alone, although it does puzzle me when I see Microsoft evangelists at conferences holding speeches from Apple computers.

I do think Windows will become pretty irrelevant over the next 5 years, as Android and iOS get owned by billions of people. However, I agree that right now and for the past few years, there's a very strong bias towards Apple computers in Silicon Valley and in media offices, and they might think "Apple is everywhere", even though it's not.

If Apple keeps curling up in their luxury niche it will be iOS that's going to be irrelevant in 5 years.

And Microsoft will start to decline if they don't go after SAP's and Oracle's enterprise applications business before their server-side stuff becomes a low cost cloud based commodity.

I think both Apple and Microsoft are going down. Linux will rule the server side and the client side in the shape of Android/Chrome OS.

Post reply on HN