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Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#121

Post by whobre »

carlosjobim wrote: post #94
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…

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…

| People who can choose what kind of computer they have will choose Apple over PC.

No, we will not.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#122

Post by ozim »

ghc wrote: post #66

It's interesting to read comments about this today, written through the lens of the present. I suspect many commenters were too young to really understand the level of dominance Microsoft had in the market circa from 1995-2005. Just look at this chart: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/143277-microsofts-shar... In 2004, outside of education and desktop publishing it was extremely rare to see an Apple computer at…

Agree with this take.

It is also highly visible in nerd Linux circles where some people still think they fight to have Linux on Desktop.

Linux on Desktop is irrelevant just as Microsoft pre 2005 is irrelevant.

MSFT saw that cloud is the future and they are in that business and O365 is flagship product where Windows just a support nice to have part because they need OS so people can run their browser.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#123

Post by pjmlp »

PetitPrince wrote: post #64
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…

> Microsoft had, in 2007, 18% presence share in console gaming. Today they have 65% Source for this ? Also what do you mean by "presence" ? I had the impression that Sony was in a way better position than Microsoft, and they were both dwarfed by Nintendo by a substantial margin. (not that this invalidate your overall point).

PlayStation 3 went down quite badly among game developers given how hard Cell was to program for, and users with the whole OtherOS fallout, this brought XBox 360 into the winning round.

Microsoft lost the plot afterwards with XBox ONE against the Playstation 4, and even with the Series S|X, they never recovered on the hardware side.

However this is kind of relative now, even if they don't public admit yet, the hardware is gone, they are going SEGA, and by being one of the largest game publishers, it hardly matters if the XBox console isn't going that well.

In one year they already recovered all the money lost in the ABK deal and litigations.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#124

Post by pjmlp »

hajile wrote: post #84
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…

Xbox One sold 57.9M and Series family has sold 28.3M by mid 2024. PS4 sold 117M and PS5 sold 61.7M by mid 2024. Nintendo claims 150.9M Switch consoles sold as of the end of 2024. That puts Microsoft at around 20.7%, Sony at 43%, and Nintendo at about 36.3%. Even if you exclude Nintendo with a "no-true-gamer" fallacy, Microsoft still has just 32.5% of the market. Windows was over 90% in 2007 and is just 72% today. If…

Yes, if we are counting only game consoles, now if we count game studios owned by each company, and they earnings across all platforms, it is a complete different picture.

Microsoft owns PC, and even Valve has forced to emulate Windows/DirectX to have any games on SteamDeck.

The amount of office worker typing Excel sheets on mobile phones is rather tiny.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#125

Post by vishnugupta »

jasode wrote: post #116
donny2018 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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....

Then what is he talking about when he says "dead"?

Also comparing those MS softwares with Z-mainframe & RHEL feels a bit off. If you take a 90th percentile of s/w developer starting career today they are more likely to have heard or used those MS tools than IBM's. I mean for vast majority GitHub is a synonym for Git and VSCode is nearly a de-facto IDE for frontend development, TypeScript I don't need to say much.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#126

Post by pjmlp »

virgilp wrote: post #41
baxtr wrote: post #9

What is this telling us about the stuff he writes with full conviction today?

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…

I bet everyone on Linux that depend on stuff IBM and Red-Hat contribute to, really care, a lot.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#127

Post by pjmlp »

karterk wrote: post #5

Satya saved Microsoft by doubling down on Azure and Cloud. Something that Balmer failed to do with Mobile.

Meanwhile he allowed desktop development to become a mess, he was the one killing mobile, and now Microsoft is dependent on Google and Apple for mobile endpoints, other than laptops.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#128

Post by pjmlp »

ptdorf wrote: post #70
codr7 wrote: post #20

Given their trajectory at the time, they probably would be. Right now they're embracing open source and Linux, which has proven to be a very good idea. I'm still not convinced.

EEE

Android and ChromeOS.

Google is being much better at that game with Linux.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#129

Post by vishnugupta »

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.

In 2007, when the article was written, I distinctly remember being at Amazon and Windows laptops were the default option. So was the entire office suite, their share point thing, not to speak about Outlook. In fact one had to beg to IT guys to allow us to use Linux laptops. MacBooks were still a few years away if I remember correctly.

It's amazing that PG looked around in his bubble, saw MacBooks and decided to write that Microsoft is dead.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#130

Post by sylware »

nova22033 wrote: post #8
sylware wrote: post #2

Those toxic companies have billions of cash, then backed by the tens of thousands of billions from funds like vanguard and blackrock. This money is sort of "weaponized". If you are not "them", if you stick to the basic "economic rules", you are already gone as you cannot exist.

How did vanguard and blackrock get the money they invest in Microsoft? Hint: It's from average people investing in their retirement...

This is not what I said:

1 - they have their own cash from huge racketering (forced) monetary streams. 2 - then, you still have the tens of thousands of billions from funds like vanguard and blackrock.

Those gigantic amounts of money are 'economically weaponized' to 'economically destroy' any sane alternatives, at worldwide scale. RIP "ecomonic competition" (who thinks nowadays this thing is not a scam).

So you say the very average people investing there are plainly aware their money is engaged in 'economic tyrany' which forces down the throat of nearly all average people, that worldwide, the _amazing_ msft software ? mmmmh....

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