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Microsoft is Dead

paulgraham.com

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Re: Microsoft is Dead

#41

Post by amichail »

brett wrote: post #37
amichail wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if Microsoft does not intentionally break IE, what incentive would it have to improve support for AJAX apps? For example, what incentive would it have to support an offline mode for AJAX apps?

You think Microsoft can stop web app innovation by just ignoring it themselves? Their incentive is to maintain their market share. IE7 is their attempt to get their ass in gear for precisely that reason. The market's not going to stick around and wait for IE and the web will progress whether MSFT wants it to or not.

Well, apparently MS killed Java on the client:

http://java.sys-con.com/read/37121.htm

So yes, they could make life difficult for AJAX developers.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#43

Post by mdakin »

lak wrote: post #3

I guess I must be old now, because I find it hard to believe that a company that still has their software running on 95% of the world's computers is "dead". I just don't get this argument. I totally agree that there's this very small, very insular part of the world that thinks it's dead, but that part of the world is apparently not working in large companies, or trading files with professionals in any profession othe…

The architecture example is a bad one. While AutoCAD on Windows is by far the dominant setup there is a product for Macs called Vectorworks that is used by many firms. Several in the Boston area alone.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#44

Post by volida »

amichail wrote: post #41
brett wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think Microsoft can stop web app innovation by just ignoring it themselves? Their incentive is to maintain their market share. IE7 is their attempt to get their ass in gear for precisely that reason. The market's not going to stick around and wait for IE and the web will progress whether MSFT wants it to or not.

Well, apparently MS killed Java on the client: http://java.sys-con.com/read/37121.htm So yes, they could make life difficult for AJAX developers.

the fact that MS Atlas exists makes your AJAX hypothesis false.

Microsoft tried to kill XForms. The workaround of AJAX made Microsoft to open their eyes 10-12 months ago...

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#45

Post by zach »

hello_moto wrote: post #10

Paul, I think you're being an ignorant a little bit in this case. Have you seen how Microsoft become the second major player in the game industry behind Sony PS brand? I think right now more people own XBOX 360 compare to Sony PS3. Of course there's Wii, the Apple of Console machine. Google is popular because people like Michael Arrington, Walleywag, and those biased non-professional bloggers-turned-online-reporters…

The Xbox is a red herring. Microsoft's "Home and Entertainment" division still loses millions a day, six years after the Xbox unveiling, and has very little to do with technology in the first place, much less software innovation.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#46

Post by zach »

randallsquared wrote: post #9

Microsoft is still an enormously profitable and powerful company in the real world, and you should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in your insular little "Web 2.0" bubble. More seriously, I mostly do business right now with small businesses (2-8 people), and some stupidly high proportion of these businesses run totally on Windows. When they go to buy the computer(s) they nee…

Come on, we're not talking about the homefront here, we're talking about the frontier. This is the startup news site; we're not here to talk about the current industry standard.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#47

Post by apansari »

Paul, excellent article. I have two additional reasons behind why Microsoft is "dead."

Reason (5): Steve Ballmer took over from Bill Gates as CEO in Jan 2000. Chief Sales Guy takes over from Chief Egghead and the company stops building products for its real users.

Reason (6): Web 1.0 hiring. Microsoft hired a huge number of people in 1998-2001, people who were too stupid or incompetent to get a job pretty much anywhere else. The good people all went to web startups then. This was the first crack in Microsoft's "we have the world's best people" armor. B players hire C players, and it goes downhill from there.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#48

Post by zach »

lak wrote: post #3

I guess I must be old now, because I find it hard to believe that a company that still has their software running on 95% of the world's computers is "dead". I just don't get this argument. I totally agree that there's this very small, very insular part of the world that thinks it's dead, but that part of the world is apparently not working in large companies, or trading files with professionals in any profession othe…

Someone tell Paul Graham he's made a huge mistake -- I just called Microsoft's phone number and got through! Yup, Microsoft is as vital as they come.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#49

Post by chai »

"As Google becomes more and more application-oriented, it will look more like MS. While MS is pushing itself to be more web-based, it is snapping up Google's market share as well and therefore more Google-ish. The clash of titans will definitely be interesting. The winner will rewrite the rule of future computing platforms, while the loser will be left in oblivion and soon forgotten."

Full text here:

http://not-your-cup-of-chai.blogspot.com/2007/03/distributed-vs-centralized-entities.html

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