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Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#201

Post by ghc »

scarface_74 wrote: post #187
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…

That article is not the greatest citation and is factually wrong. Even the article admitted that It was dubious to think that Microsoft only had such a small share of the “compute” market in 2005. > That Microsoft is dead, killed off by antitrust remedies and the web The slap on the wrist that Microsoft got had nothing to do with them first losing the MP3 player market which led to Apple’s resurgence (remember the pl…

It's true that it's not the best article, but I'm not entirely sure the Goldman Sachs chart should be treated as factually wrong. The article misses that 2005 was the heyday of Blackberry and iPod (iPod sales did something like 10x that year), and it's conceivable that Goldman included those devices as "compute". At worst, it's just shifted for a couple of years.

The decoupling of IE from Explorer is what really killed Microsoft, nothing to do with with MP3s. Remember, Microsoft was producing a bunch of proprietary extensions to Javascript and HMTL to lock vendors into their ASPX nightmare. It took many years to undo the damage, but at least PC vendors were allowed to ship with a non-IE web browser.

> I don’t remember digital cameras ever needing drivers and most decent digital camcorders used FireWire which was on all Macs, most Sony’s and many Dell PCs

As an admitted hoarder of all my old tech, I can assure you I am still in possession of several floppy disks with Windows drivers from my first digital cameras. My memory is a bit fuzzy on the exact timing, but I think the last digital camera I had to install drivers for was circa 2007 (Vista!). I still miss the days of my Sony laptops coming with i.Link, but I don't remember being able to connect my Sony cameras to many non-Sony PCs. I do remember having to install drivers to get Sony's ridiculous memory stick readers to work with other PCs (and Linux) though.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#202

Post by incrudible »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #193
breadwinner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... by becoming OSS friendly, and especially Linux friendly. Prior to that Microsoft and Azure were irrelevant because nobody wanted to run their backends on Windows.

Azure always had a very large and devoted following of corps who were all in on Windows, even in the early days when everything Azure ran on Windows. They had a very deep fanbase which caused them to not see things from the Silicon Valley perspective

Yes, the same nerds who would balk at using Windows would have balked at using Azure, but when it was time to choose clouds, that foot that Microsoft had in the door with corporate paid off big time. Many people have the privilege of working detached from the corporate world, but that also leads to warped perceptions like that of Paul in 2007.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#203

Post by ratg13 »

behnamoh wrote: post #56
karterk wrote: post #5

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

He saved Microsoft's investers' pockets, but destroyed the soul of Windows, Windows Phone, the Nokia partnership, the Office suite, etc. One could say he actually destroyed MSFT to build something new.

don't forget the tons of cash destroyed and resources trying to make bing competitive with google

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#204

Post by scarface_74 »

hawaiianbrah wrote: post #175
shaftway wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the recent places I've worked, both use it. Block was at ~14,000 employees, but I think they're currently at ~12,500. My current company uses it, and we're ~2,000.

My ~3000 person company (a subsidiary of Microsoft!) even uses Google workspace

Hell Amazon uses Microsoft Office internally and is pre-installed on all corporate computers and Outlook is the standard

Amazon is the second largest employer in the US.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#205

Post by scarface_74 »

Attrecomet wrote: post #106
lotsofpulp wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Google leaders were smart to not take on Excel, especially after it was clear Microsoft was moving things to the cloud and spinning up Office 365. There is no way a competitor could sustainably price a competing product against a low monthly or annual cost Excel/Office/OneDrive SAAS option, since the majority of the workforce was already trained on Office products, and everyone is using an edge feature that a…

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...

Microsoft Office enterprise is $12 per seat.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#206

Post by scarface_74 »

behnamoh wrote: post #56
karterk wrote: post #5

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

He saved Microsoft's investers' pockets, but destroyed the soul of Windows, Windows Phone, the Nokia partnership, the Office suite, etc. One could say he actually destroyed MSFT to build something new.

The Office Suite is doing better than ever. I have no problem paying $129 a year for O365 with five users and each user can use it across Macs, Windows, iPhone, iPad and web. The iPad version with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse is actually pretty good.

And 1TB of storage per user.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#207

Post by scarface_74 »

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…

In 2005, it was actually closer to 4x - 60.79 vs 271B

It was around 2011 that Apple had a higher market cap.

He did predict the iPhone. That basically cemented Microsoft’s fate. Sure MS is still dominant in the “enterprise”. But no one is investing money to make great Windows apps.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#208

Post by sunaookami »

breadwinner wrote: post #158
karterk wrote: post #5

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

... by becoming OSS friendly, and especially Linux friendly. Prior to that Microsoft and Azure were irrelevant because nobody wanted to run their backends on Windows.

Embrace, extend, extinguish

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#209

Post by JohnHaugeland »

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…

I said presence share, not market share

Three total customers exist worldwide. All three have red square, two have yellow square, and one has blue square

Blue square sold one in six items, so it has one sixth market share. Blue square is one in three households, so it has one third presence share

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#210

Post by JohnHaugeland »

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%).

The PC’s share of gaming, according to EA, by dollars spent, is 23%, the second largest slice behind iOS, larger than any of the consoles

Guesswork is rarely helpful

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