Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 237 posts

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#141

Post by rcxdude »

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…

It is a pretty unhelpful way to say "Is not longer as incredibly dominant as it was". It's a stretch to apply it to "Is declining into irrelevence", even.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#142

Post by virgilp »

ethbr1 wrote: post #133
virgilp wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cyc…

Any of the "ultrabooks" with decent IPS screens, keyboards, metal bodies, and battery life. Dell XPSs were a decent option for the last decade+ (especially the refurbs), but Dell seems to be going through a rebranding exercise [0], so those will now be Dell Pro/Premium models? Maybe? [0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/01/the-end-of-an-era-de...

I don't think battery life is close. It was the number 1 criterion on my list.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#143

Post by hajile »

pjmlp wrote: post #124
hajile wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even if you look at just computer games, Windows has a smaller share than any time since the 1980s.

If you include the massive mobile gaming market, Windows gaming is an even tinier percentage of the overall market (maybe even <10%).

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#144

Post by DanielHB »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #137
Attrecomet wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you find these low monthly cost options? Using Office is considerably more expensive than it ever was for a business, and the profit margins are huge. And if anyone could sustain an office suite until it runs profitably in these circumstances, it must surely be Google...

I don’t know that office 365 is more expensive than before, if incorporating time and stress into the equation. Businesses get to dispense with all their IT staff basically and just let people access everything via a browser. And it’s a lot less technical for the managers to manage users and licenses. But the problem for competitors is say you are able to make a product just as good as Excel. You start selling it $x,…

> Google Docs and whatnot came out all the way back in the late 2000s, but it still didn’t see any measurable adoption by the time office 365 was out. Maybe it is because Google didn’t stick with it and develop it, but I still think it was a long shot.

It didn't stick because google did not pursue the strategy to take over enterprise. Google Docs by itself is not going to displace Office 365 and IT management tools, you need the whole suite of products.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#145

Post by CrimsonCape »

dijit wrote: post #97
jvanderbot wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying that new AAA game companies use macs or linux? I can't resolve the cognitive dissonance of that making a ton of sense or none.

There are more non-windows PC's in AAA game companies than there were in 2008 by a wide margin. Though usually not directly for gamedev. In 2008, the IT department couldn't even handle Macs at all, now it's a standard deployment among managers, designers, brand and even some programmers who only work with backend code. (though usually they'll have a gaming PC too for testing the game). That was literally unthinkable…

Sure there are more non-windows PC's but it's still miniscule[1]. To claim Microsoft is anything other than dominant is fallacious. And I understand the desire to talk positively about the good things (linux adoption) and ignore the bad things (Microsoft dominance).

[1] "https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/04/linux-share-on-steam-b...

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#146

Post by dijit »

CrimsonCape wrote: post #145
dijit wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more non-windows PC's in AAA game companies than there were in 2008 by a wide margin. Though usually not directly for gamedev. In 2008, the IT department couldn't even handle Macs at all, now it's a standard deployment among managers, designers, brand and even some programmers who only work with backend code. (though usually they'll have a gaming PC too for testing the game). That was literally unthinkable…

Sure there are more non-windows PC's but it's still miniscule[1]. To claim Microsoft is anything other than dominant is fallacious. And I understand the desire to talk positively about the good things (linux adoption) and ignore the bad things (Microsoft dominance). [1] " https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/04/linux-share-on-steam-b...

The amount of steam users is not at all what I’m talking about, I’m saying as a game developer (a windows *dominated* field) there are more people running around with Macs for general purpose computing than 2008.

That’s not wishful thinking, thats reality. Computers do more than play games.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#147

Post by anothercoup »

> Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops

I find this absolutely shocking. Was this a west coast thing? I graduated and got my first job around that time and never met a single developer who used an apple laptop. My CS department was entirely unix/linux/bsd and windows. All my internships and jobs post graduation was windows or linux. My experience was that the hacker community, cs community, developer community all looked down on apple laptops, especially back then.

I guess we all live in our own little bubbles.

Edit: Also, the worry back then wasn't so much that microsoft is dead, but that microsoft was expanding so much that even if you preferred to develop on a linux stack, you still wanted to get some background in C#, VB, tsql, etc to improve your chances at landing a job.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#148

Post by dijit »

virgilp wrote: post #142
ethbr1 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any of the "ultrabooks" with decent IPS screens, keyboards, metal bodies, and battery life. Dell XPSs were a decent option for the last decade+ (especially the refurbs), but Dell seems to be going through a rebranding exercise [0], so those will now be Dell Pro/Premium models? Maybe? [0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/01/the-end-of-an-era-de...

I don't think battery life is close. It was the number 1 criterion on my list.

the performance for electron apps on Windows is terrible, even my threadripper 7960X feels laggy in slack compared to my fanless macbook air M2.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#149

Post by subsection1h »

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.

FYI, this guy is a troll.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41153109

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#150

Post by pjmlp »

hajile wrote: post #143
pjmlp wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even if you look at just computer games, Windows has a smaller share than any time since the 1980s. If you include the massive mobile gaming market, Windows gaming is an even tinier percentage of the overall market (maybe even <10%).

Have you ever played Windows games on the 1980's?

That would be a first.

What matters is where money is, and how much of those games trace back to Microsoft owned studios.

Good example with mobile games though, as it is a good example of Valve's failure to capitalise on 80% of mobile games being run with OpenGL/Vulkan, on a Linux like platform, and yet they have to translate Win32/DirectX, as means to get games on SteamDeck.

Post reply on HN