At the time this was written, it seemed as if Microsoft was dying, so calling it dead might be a "safe" prediction.
However, even a dying wounded can get intensive care and get back to life...
Microsoft is Dead (2007)
151–160 of 195 posts
Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)
#152It's a good thing Microsoft is "dead" so now when appropriate we can use MS tech without having to endure the critics. As far as evil goes, to me, Google is much more scaring than MS.
I think you mean "Google is much more scary than MS". The gerund doesn't make a lot of sense in this context. For bonus fluency points, it reads better if you say "I fear Google much more than MS". I apologize if feedback on your English was unwanted. --- On another note, I generally agree. Google has a lot more scope for evil than Microsoft does. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish applies to what appeared to some Google pr…
Oh well I wrote "scary" at first then I thought "no it must be 'scaring'".
No need for apology when you give me a chance to improve my English.
Thank you.
Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)
#153It 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.
Reduced to not fearing is dead. Computer Associates eeks out a living on obsolete enterprise apps that some people. And the city of San Francisco contains a direct current power utility. Edge cases are the opposite of dominance. APPL may soon be the next MSFT if they don't have another full-sized iPad up their sleeves to wow us with very soon. A solar powered flying watch that reads your mind and predictively orders…
By that logic, every startup or small business is already dead.
Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)
#154"One of the reasons "Web 2.0" has such an air of euphoria about it is the feeling, conscious or not, that this era of monopoly may finally be over."
While it seems that there is no longer the complete monopoly that Microsoft had, the new monopoly that Google has is functionally similar. While not fully there yet, they are heading towards near-complete lock-in to Google services. Web 2.0 may have raised the bar for monopoly (or lowered the bar for competition), it definitely didn't do away with it altogether.
Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)
#1552007 - $51.12 billion 2013 - $77.85 billion I'd love to die like that.
Their revenue numbers were impressive but how much of that change was from new products and customers and how much was from increasing licensing costs to existing customers?
Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
All of those things that Microsof were hated for in the 90s are just mainstream tech business practice in 2014. For better or worse, they were trailblazers that big tech companies since have copied, not just a one-off bad guy. Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook are all doing exactly the same stuff, where they can and where they calculate they can get away with it.
Microsoft didn't even invent the practices. The tactics--like bundling--are only illegal when you have an monopoly and you exploit the monopoly to win over different markets.
That said, I don't believe Microsoft is a monopoly any longer, at least for consumer PCs.
Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)
#157Why can't people just acknowledge these things are cyclical?
You love something, then everyone loves it, then it's not as cool and special, then people start to hate it, then they tear it down and find something else to love. Microsoft has completed that cycle and is now potentially going to be loved again, whereas Apple is nearing the end of their cycle and is started to be hated.
Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)
#158The most amazing thing about this essay is that even the smartest people amongst us (Paul Graham) can be bigoted and see things as black and white when they are grey.
Microsoft has done some well documented evil things but imagine if IBM had won the OS wars? Talk about locked down and monopolistic! And has the ascendance of Apple and Google been uniformly good? I think not - we are in less control over our software and our data than when Microsoft was in charge.
It kinda seems crazy stupid to not invite a company that makes $24B in income a year to your demo day. But then again, Microsoft has never been a company that is bamboozled by Nest Labs-style startup overvaluation bullshit, and maybe you knew that.
Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)
#159C# 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.
> 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.
By that count, web apps would die even faster?
Re: Microsoft is Dead (2007)
#160C# 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.
You are seriously saying somehow that languages which abstract away hardware details are bad?
"Assembly? Bad! you should know the instructions op codes."
"C? Bad! you should know assembly! What are you trying to do? Write an operating system that is portable beyond the PDP architecture?"
"Java? Bad! You should manage your own memory! And the STL should be good enough for anyone."
Abstraction, by reducing complexity or making assumptions, allows developers to work faster or do more. Does this have negative side effects? Sure (see Joel's leaky abstractions article), but the benefits out weight the costs by several orders of magnitude. My evidence? The entire computer industry for the last 74 years.