Microsoft is Dead

May I know whom attacking MS Office?

Last time I checked, none of the online web two point ooh software can open big documents. These web-apps only match probably 20% of MS Office features and it's simply not enough these days when people are more tech-savvy than in the past.

"FYI, IPTV is better than YouTube."

If such blunt and sweeping statements are being made in Redmond then surely Paul Graham is right. Microsoft is dead.

To even think that IPTV and YouTube are 1 on 1 competitors represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what YouTube is all about.

"How many Google apps dying? How many Google apps that people use these days? AdSense, GMail, GMap, and of course, their search engine."

Google's way is to play with dozens of ideas in the hope that somewhere around 10% of them succeed to cover their growth, sort of like an in-house venture capital. In that respect they're doing remarkably well.

I guess I'm in the younger half, because on reflection, I realize that not only do I agree, but that this is old news to me. I'm not complaining, though -- this article made me realize something I didn't know consciously.

A lot of commenters here seem to argue that Microsoft still has the vast majority of desktop installations, and that this isn't likely to go away soon. I agree (I don't like it, but I think it's true). But I also agree that Microsoft isn't a threat any more, like it used to be. And, on reflection, I agree that it is web apps that are making the difference.

I don't think that Word or Photoshop moving online is what really makes the difference, though. Every hoary Windows competitor has had a word processor and an image editor. (Sure, they didn't match Word feature-for-feature; does Writely?) But I believe a major reason that prevented people from switching has been the long tail of applications: "It doesn't have any accounting software for plumbers!"

The feeling that Microsoft had a secure monopoly came from the fact that these long-tail programs were all written for Windows, because that was what was economic for its developers. Word and Photoshop always had a Mac version. Accounting for Plumbers never did.

Now, these applications live on the Web. And while the people using them still might use Windows, it doesn't matter; it makes Microsoft money, but it doesn't buy them any leverage.

Did you read the article? By "dead", pg does not mean that Bill Gates has to resort to dumpster diving to get his evening meal. He's not saying that they're not still up and running, or that that they're not enormously profitable. He's saying that its "shadow is gone", that startup founders aren't afraid of it anymore. He's saying that another company, Google, is now the leader where Microsoft once was.

I'm not sure why you think it's necessary to dismiss the accomplishments of Google and Apple while at the same time being condescending toward the people who use their products. For example, to say "Google is popular because people like Michael Arrington, Walleywag, and those biased non-professional bloggers-turned-online-reporters sing praises toward Google" is to imply that Google's products are basically worthless and the people who use them are too foolish to realize it because they've been duped into using them by a cadre of clever bloggers. This doesn't logically support your argument that Microsoft isn't dead, so why say it?

If you want to show how pg is wrong, I suggest starting by rebutting his arguments, not putting down most of the people who enjoy this site.