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Microsoft is Dead (2007)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#141

Post by ygra »

sharemywin wrote: post #110
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…

The XBOX also cannibalized PC sales. Pre-XBox you bought a PC to play the latest games every 2 years. Now you buy an Xbox.

There are also a lot console-exclusive games which you would otherwise play on a PlayStation.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#142

Post by visualR »

rmc wrote: post #101
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…

Fast forward seven years, and some of the biggest names in software (Instagram, Lyft) have completely abandoned the web for "desktop" (really, native) software. But don't those software only work by connecting to their cloud servers? Could you use Instagram if Instagram Ltd turned off their servers? That means it's inherently web software.

Web and internet are not the same thing. Web generally refers to a browser client.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#143

Post by visualR »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #140
higherpurpose wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sounds bleak

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#144

Post by visualR »

spiderPig wrote: post #39

So are these the same thoughts the hacker community will have with Apple's iOS in the future (there'll inevitably be some missteps)? Or even OSX for that matter? I fail to see why in-principle the community that is so vocal about FOSS gives them a pass.

Stallman doesn't. Apple did open source WebKit, which made the browser experience good.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#145

Post by tshile »

jey wrote: post #9
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.

PG addresses this criticism here: http://paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html

Yeah, he was right, people that design software no longer had to worry about Microsoft.

Except that it's 2014 and Microsoft is still relevant. The techy bubble on the west coast may all be using Mac's but microsoft products can still be found throughout the rest of the world.

I like PG, and love his essays, but this one was just bad. I'm not even talking about his prediction, just the way he puts it out there. It's just a very pathetic read.

For ~20 years Microsoft was a bully and received much criticism for it. Now they're just another tech company that's successful at the end of the day and has a lot of products out there being used by a lot of people. Now they're dead?

Give me a break. The whole Microsoft-hate bandwagon is absolutely pathetic to watch. It's just like the Apple-hate bandwagon.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#146

Post by guardian5x »

gnaffle wrote: post #114
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…

Here's a good story about the shutdown menu in Vista, and how it came to be: Original rant by Joel Spolsky: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html Answer from the guy working on the shutdown menu: http://moishelettvin.blogspot.no/2006/11/windows-shutdown-cr... Another response from the guy that implemented the OSX shutdown menu: http://arno.org/arnotify/2006/11/the-design-of-the-mac-os-x-...

On every Microsoft topic a lot of old stories come up. I think many people at Microsoft know that things have been going wrong during the Vista development, and a lot has changed since then.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#147

Post by guardian5x »

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.

I remember that they even saved Apple from going bankrupt back then. Its true that they dominated Apple, but i wouldn't say that they wanted to destroy them.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#148

Post by kendalk »

sekm wrote: post #2

IMO Microsoft is still one of the scariest companies when it comes to the gaming industry. I'm overjoyed to see tricklets of sanity rise up (the PC market)through Valves efforts, but MS is still a very big, very scary beast in AAA gaming.

My guess is that Valve is being watched by every other game maker. I wonder what is being said behind closed doors in meetings with a lot of suits. If Valve is successful, I don't think they will be alone for long.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#149

Post by kendalk »

Beltiras wrote: post #42

I predicted Apple's death some months after Steve Jobs died. Why? Two things (both of them decisions of the CEO): Plastic iPhones and the iPad mini (both products Jobs had resisted) and the more damning fact that for the first time a dividend of a serious size was paid ( http://investor.apple.com/dividends.cfm ). Jobs was adamant about growing the warchest. His assumption was that if a stockholder thought his/her inv…

Apple has increased the number of MBAs since Jobs passed. See: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/05/24/apple-tim-cook-ceo/

This may indicate a corporate shift from a visionary outlook to a managing perspective. Someone on the inside would have better insight, but as an outsider I have to wonder.

Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)

#150

Post by headgasket »

C# and .net killed MS. The same virus killed Sun and will kill oracle. Technologies that try to isolate the coder from the machine by creating a funnelled dumbed-down common interface are inherently flawed because the HW evolves faster than the software.
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