Microsoft Is Dead (2007) • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#111

Post by thesuitonym » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 2:27 PM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #76

buran77 wrote: post #14

> Their [n.b Apple's] victory is so complete that I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops So nearly all of the (relatively) very few people that are funded by YC have Apple and that's proof of Apple's complete victory over a dead MS. In a year when MS was still on an upward trend, growing by 20% market cap to become double that o…

> Reading rich people's blogs reminds me every time that there's a reason wealth is also called "fortune". Because it's more about luck than anything else. And by luck I mean a family golden nugget, or lucky first investment, or both. A superpower that allows one to fail many times and still be able to try again until they hit the next fortune. Most people in the world can't even afford to try. Most of the rest can't…

From Wikipedia: Graham received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in philosophy from Cornell University in 1986. He then received a Master of Science in 1988, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1990, both in computer science from Harvard University. Graham has also studied fine arts and painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.

Note that most people can't even afford to go to one university, let alone four. That definitely seems like someone who had a safety net that allowed him to focus on acquiring wealth, instead of acquiring shelter or food.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#112

Post by why_only_15 » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 2:37 PM UTC

josefrichter wrote: post #95

buran77 wrote: post #14

> Their [n.b Apple's] victory is so complete that I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops So nearly all of the (relatively) very few people that are funded by YC have Apple and that's proof of Apple's complete victory over a dead MS. In a year when MS was still on an upward trend, growing by 20% market cap to become double that o…

This also reminds me of "garage startups". In fact, probably only a fraction of people around the world own a garage. If your family has a garage, it means you are probably among the top ~1% richest people on Earth.

Probably more like richest 10%, which applies to most people in the US

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#113

Post by virgilp » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

ethbr1 wrote: post #65

virgilp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read all of it. Go beyond just the title, and it should tell you that Paul Graham was more right than wrong with this one. - Google was, for a while, the "gorilla in the room" - their decline is recent. But Paul Graham got it right, that Google was more scary than MS. - Microsoft was "dead" in 2007, same as Apple was before Steve Jobs came back. The revival started with Satya Nadella, 7 years later. It is still a sha…

The problem with "all use Macs" is that Apple has always been a great hardware company with an underfunded software side. MacOS has so many problems or unsupported features it isn't funny, while Windows was fine. >> I never used Microsoft software, so it only affected me indirectly Hmm. The lesson here is probably don't assume you understand a competitor's strengths and weaknesses via secondhand experience. And the t…

This was not meant to transform into "windows vs mac, which is better". But I happen to have used both, recently, and can tell: no, Windows got closer but is not quite there on the "having a shell" chapter. It still has too many, and too different. Powershell.NET is powerful, but is also "alien" to many people - you have to know .NET! Scripting is meant to be quick & hacky, not "real software that needs a release cycle", and in that sense Powershell.NET, while miles better than whatever MS previously had, still misses the mark. You know how you can tell? Because it works perfectly fine on Mac, but has 0 adoption there.

WSL2 is... ugh, ok, much better that WSL. And actually decent. But, as the name implies, is a linux environment. Not a native Windows terminal.

> a few companies started making Windows laptops that weren't bricks

I am honestly, genuinely interested in a windows-based laptop that is as good as a Macbook Pro (or at least very close). Would like the flexibility to move away from Apple. Am interested in battery life, compute power (i.e. internal processor speed, ssd speed, memory size, decent gpu), screen, keyboard & touchpad, and overall build quality (the last one is almost guaranteed if it is close in quality on all the other dimensions).

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#114

Post by foldr » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

thesuitonym wrote: post #111

robertlagrant wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reading rich people's blogs reminds me every time that there's a reason wealth is also called "fortune". Because it's more about luck than anything else. And by luck I mean a family golden nugget, or lucky first investment, or both. A superpower that allows one to fail many times and still be able to try again until they hit the next fortune. Most people in the world can't even afford to try. Most of the rest can't…

From Wikipedia: Graham received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in philosophy from Cornell University in 1986. He then received a Master of Science in 1988, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1990, both in computer science from Harvard University. Graham has also studied fine arts and painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. Note that most people can't even afford to go…

PG is from a middle class family AFAIK and probably benefited from some parental support. However, you may be missing the fact that graduate study in the US is typically funded. He would most likely have received a stipend or other funding covering living expenses while doing his PhD.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#115

Post by nunez » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 2:47 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #90

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been hearing people say this since this incorrect essay was written almost 20 years ago Microsoft had 74% of the desktop then and has 72% today Microsoft had 0% of hosting then and has the world’s second largest share, 23%, today Microsoft had, in 2007, 18% presence share in console gaming. Today they have 65% They were one of the four tech orgs present at the presidential inauguration They have grown enormously…

>I’ve been hearing people say this since this incorrect essay was written almost 20 years ago Microsoft had [...list of significant statistics...] Whenever someone writes a provocative article about something being "dead" , they are almost always talking about influence and mindshare -- rather than business statistics. Yes, Microsoft is still a huge behemoth being a $3+ trillion cap company with a overwhelming market…

Watson has been around a long, long time, and they are still leaders in quantum computing IIRC.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#116

Post by jasode » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 2:48 PM UTC

donny2018 wrote: post #108

jasode wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I’ve been hearing people say this since this incorrect essay was written almost 20 years ago Microsoft had [...list of significant statistics...] Whenever someone writes a provocative article about something being "dead" , they are almost always talking about influence and mindshare -- rather than business statistics. Yes, Microsoft is still a huge behemoth being a $3+ trillion cap company with a overwhelming market…

You are missing a lot of stuff Microsoft is doing. Azure, .NET, server tools, databases, VS Code, TypeScript, GitHub, (yes, OpenAI), gaming, XBox, desktop, business tools, Surface, Microsoft 365, Teams and lots more. I'd say much of the things they are doing is quite "fresh" and it's more relevant as it has ever been. There is a reason it's market cap is bigger than Google's and Amazon's, and its downfall has been lo…

>You are missing a lot of stuff Microsoft is doing. Azure, .NET, server tools, databases, VS Code, TypeScript, GitHub, [...] and it's more relevant as it has ever been.

I didn't list them because they're not "relevant" (scare quotes) to PG's rhetorical angle of "dead". Yes, of course those Microsoft components are still relevant and still being updated and modernized. That said, even though I personally use VSCode, Visual Studio, Github every day, and have upgraded too many MS SQL Server databases... my point is those examples of Microsoft's current usage is not what PG is talking about. I'm not saying readers have to agree with PG. They just have to understand that he's using "dead" as a provocative shorthand about "influence" rather than business stats.

Same confusion as IBM coming out with new Z mainframe models in 2025 and IBM Red Hat just released a new RHEL 9.5 a few months ago and yet people will say "IBM is dead". How can IBM be dead if Red Hat Linux is still relevant?!? That's the problem with different readers' interpretation of the word "dead".

EDIT reply to: >Then what is he talking about when he says "dead"? [...] I mean for vast majority GitHub is a synonym for Git and VSCode is nearly a de-facto IDE for frontend development,

Github (2008 acquired by MS in 2018) and VSCode (2015) didn't exist in 2007 when PG wrote his "Microsoft is Dead" essay. It's possible those are "influential" enough to change his opinion. Maybe not. The examples of millions of people using MS Excel and Word every day back in 2007 with no meaningful competition from Google Docs or LibreOffice didn't stop him form writing "Microsoft is Dead". Therefore, we must conclude he's using "dead" in a very particular way.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#117

Post by yellowstuff » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 2:53 PM UTC

I'll admit that this is a charitable reading of the essay, but I think that MS was dead in 2007 and is still dead in 2025, in the sense that Graham was focused on. In the 90s startup founders were scared that if they started a software company MS would copy their idea and crush them. Bill Gates used to talk about how he wanted to "monopolize" software before the lawyers caught up with him. By 2007 MS was mostly irrelevant to startup founders, and with a few exceptions it's mostly irrelevant to them now. They're not in the business of crushing the life out of software startups anymore. Paul's a VC, and that's what he was focused on.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#118

Post by nunez » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 2:56 PM UTC

DanielHB wrote: post #54

gadders wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think google are in the enshittification phase of their corporate development and are currently in a cycle of making 0.1% more revenue on search changes at the expense of making it 5% shittier for users each time.

To be fair in 2007 it really did seem like google could completely destroy microsoft monopoly on enterprise software with google docs, google sheets and google workspace. And then they just didn't? They just gave up, only small companies use google workspace these days and excel is as entrenched as ever. I suppose the google meet/google talk/google hangouts explains a lot of why this hypothetical future didn't happen…

very big companies use Workspace and the full suite of Google Docs products within.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#119

Post by carlosjobim » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 2:57 PM UTC

globalnode wrote: post #107

carlosjobim wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about being rich or not. People who can choose what kind of computer they have will choose Apple over PC. People who cannot choose will use work computers in their office with Windows installed, that corporate chose for them. People who do not want a computer at all will have neither PC or Mac. The majority of people do not want to have a computer – they see enough of them at work, and they are happy with th…

I think Apple is a very American thing. Outside the US, which you may not care about, only the most aspirationally Americanised people I've known have gone for apple products. Im not sure what the reasons are.

Europeans generally don't purchase the things they want, they purchase the things they are supposed to be wanting, after having long deliberations together with relatives and friends. So then they'll only look at specs and price and not how useful a product is or how pleasant it is to use.

Europeans are in general very weird about money. They are as greedy as anybody, but what do they do then with that money? They think turning on the air conditioner will ruin them financially and they count how many cents each person owes each other.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#120

Post by DanielHB » Tue, Feb 04, 2025, 3:07 PM UTC

nunez wrote: post #118

DanielHB wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair in 2007 it really did seem like google could completely destroy microsoft monopoly on enterprise software with google docs, google sheets and google workspace. And then they just didn't? They just gave up, only small companies use google workspace these days and excel is as entrenched as ever. I suppose the google meet/google talk/google hangouts explains a lot of why this hypothetical future didn't happen…

very big companies use Workspace and the full suite of Google Docs products within.

Examples? I right now work in one, but I wouldn't call my company big (From my (limited) experience google workspace doesn't really offer the level of control over employee computers that microsoft solutions do (like limiting what you can install or tuning settings). So it is a non-starter for any big company.