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

Microsoft is Dead

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 97 posts

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#41

Post by zdw »

brudgers wrote: post #24
zdw wrote: post #4

There are two Microsofts: - The one that does interesting, innovative stuff but a failure/modest success in the marketplace (online, xbox, sync interface for cars, zune, windows phone 7) - The "legacy" one that makes windows, office, and server apps, which makes a ton on licensing. Nobody likes "legacy" microsoft, and it's the most vulnerable, but also has the most momentum behind them. People develop on or support t…

> "Until the PC goes away, and there's a huge shift to do real work off our phones/tablets/other non-legacy devices, MS will most likely be dominant in terms of market share." In the past year with Windows Phone and "the next Windows" support for ARM, they have shown just how competitive they intend to be in those markets. They have spent the last 10 years moving toward hardware independence via .NET, and they are sh…

How portable is .NET?

Is it as simple as with Java - ie, the same .jar that has minimal requirements, such as a CLI-only program, can be taken from one platform (say Windows) and run on another (say Mono on Linux) without a recompile?

Or is it more complex than that?

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#42

Post by kevin_morrill »

kia wrote: post #21
kbob wrote: post #7

Remember IBM? From 1960 through ~1985, IBM was the only answer for enterprise computing. And there really wasn't any other kind of computing then. IBM Research did everything from semiconductor research to databases to virtual machines. IBM was the hottest stock in the market in the 1960s, passing $600/share. (That's about $4,000 in today's money.) They eventually faded, as their customers moved to a combination of d…

I agree. The fact that you don't hear about an old big company that often doesn't mean it's dead. It has found it's business model and doing well in some not-that-hyped sector. On the other hand, the fact that you hear about 'new-hot-startup' on all hi-tech sites doesn't mean it'll survive it's first year.

Possibly the most rational response I've seen on this thread yet.

Yes they're dead if you're looking for the next hot new thing. But if you're looking at profit---they're the 3rd most profitable public company in the U.S. behind just Chevron and Exxon. No other software/hardware tech company makes more money.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#43

Post by rywang »

Microsoft Research is one of the top 10 computer science research organizations in the world. Some of the work done there (such as the Kinect) is game changing and will continue to be a resource Microsoft can draw upon.

As an MIT PhD student, I know many people who are eager to work at Microsoft research.

[1] http://academic.research.microsoft.com/RankList?entitytype=7... [2] http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2010/11/features/the...

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#44

Post by Tichy »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #31
AlexC04 wrote: post #25

According to analytics, I've had 20,000 hits to my website in the last 30 days. 75% of those are reported to be running a windows operating system. As much as I respect the interesting point of view presented in the article, I sometimes wonder if sites like Hacker News and Slashdot don't put us all into some sort of exceptionally nerdy bubble-think. Like with the last week or so when everything I read seemed to say "…

There's certainly some truth to what you say but I'd encourage you to look at the context of the conversation here. pg's blog and Hacker News appeal to people who are generally looking at the world from one of two perspectives: investing or as a startup. Keeping that in mind shapes the conversation differently In Microsoft's case I can absolutely see how 75% of the people visiting your website might be Windows Comput…

"How many are using it because there's simply nothing else or because they're just too lethargic to switch?"

Isn't that true for any conceivable product? I am using cars because there are no teleporters. I am using a keyboard because I don't have a good brain to computer interface yet. If I had a tablet, it would only be because there isn't a nano computer in my eyeball yet that projects directly on my retina (the real retina, not the Apple display).

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#45

Post by sedachv »

wh-uws wrote: post #18
zdw wrote: post #4

There are two Microsofts: - The one that does interesting, innovative stuff but a failure/modest success in the marketplace (online, xbox, sync interface for cars, zune, windows phone 7) - The "legacy" one that makes windows, office, and server apps, which makes a ton on licensing. Nobody likes "legacy" microsoft, and it's the most vulnerable, but also has the most momentum behind them. People develop on or support t…

I feel like products like Windows 7 and the Kinect among other things are a sign of a rally from the Microsoft camp. Agree / disagree?

You have to compare Windows 7 to XP instead of Vista. The only difference I noticed is that 7 is slower and looks more like OS X compared to XP. If there's any "innovation" going on, I haven't noticed it.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#46

Post by dpcan »

AlexC04 wrote: post #25

According to analytics, I've had 20,000 hits to my website in the last 30 days. 75% of those are reported to be running a windows operating system. As much as I respect the interesting point of view presented in the article, I sometimes wonder if sites like Hacker News and Slashdot don't put us all into some sort of exceptionally nerdy bubble-think. Like with the last week or so when everything I read seemed to say "…

The date of this article is April 2007.

My guess is that it was re-posted here for a some humor or entertainment purposes only.

I think everyone knows MS is far from "dead".

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#47

Post by Lewisham »

jdp23 wrote: post #28
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #20

I remember when pg first wrote this. A lot of people misunderstood the headline. From the pg's Cliffs notes: "What I meant was not that Microsoft is suddenly going to stop making money, but that people at the leading edge of the software business no longer have to think about them." That's at http://paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html So the two definitions pg gave in 2007 were "You don't have have to be afraid of Micros…

When this came out I was still at Microsoft with a charter of "game changing strategies". There were (and still are) quite a few things that MS could do to reinvigorate itself, but the corporate culture keeps them from gathering momentum: the company's success came in a PC-oriented world, so they don't think from a phone, device, or web perspective; and the lack of understanding of win/win dynamics (which Google rode…

Isn't this why the stuff out of the Entertainment & Devices division is doing so well? My understanding is that E&D are not as strongly shackled to corporate culture and runs as a semi-autonomous unit making its own decisions, albeit with a healthy cash flow. This is why Xbox has done so well, and Windows Phone 7, for all its critics, is really the epitome of something Microsoft simply couldn't have designed when this article was written. I mean, WP7 actually has a design. You can like it or not like it, but you can't claim it to be a copycat or not show any aesthetic talent at all.

Bing is run the same way, is it not?

It seems that Microsoft might finally be learning that if it acts as a loosely coupled set of components rather than a monolith with everyone getting veto on everyone else, things work a lot better (and presumably cheaper too). They have all the talent, they just kill it with middle-management (see: Kin).

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#48

Post by Matt_Cutts »

jdp23 wrote: post #28
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #20

I remember when pg first wrote this. A lot of people misunderstood the headline. From the pg's Cliffs notes: "What I meant was not that Microsoft is suddenly going to stop making money, but that people at the leading edge of the software business no longer have to think about them." That's at http://paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html So the two definitions pg gave in 2007 were "You don't have have to be afraid of Micros…

When this came out I was still at Microsoft with a charter of "game changing strategies". There were (and still are) quite a few things that MS could do to reinvigorate itself, but the corporate culture keeps them from gathering momentum: the company's success came in a PC-oriented world, so they don't think from a phone, device, or web perspective; and the lack of understanding of win/win dynamics (which Google rode…

I feel like I should add that I have a very healthy respect for Microsoft and their continuing influence/power. It's unwise to underestimate Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#49

Post by armandososa »

Tichy wrote: post #44
TomOfTTB wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's certainly some truth to what you say but I'd encourage you to look at the context of the conversation here. pg's blog and Hacker News appeal to people who are generally looking at the world from one of two perspectives: investing or as a startup. Keeping that in mind shapes the conversation differently In Microsoft's case I can absolutely see how 75% of the people visiting your website might be Windows Comput…

"How many are using it because there's simply nothing else or because they're just too lethargic to switch?" Isn't that true for any conceivable product? I am using cars because there are no teleporters. I am using a keyboard because I don't have a good brain to computer interface yet. If I had a tablet, it would only be because there isn't a nano computer in my eyeball yet that projects directly on my retina (the re…

The point here is that most people who have the luxury (and information) to chose their platform won't use Windows.

If teleporters were invented today, chances are that you wouldn't be able to afford one for the next 20 years.

Re: Microsoft is Dead

#50

Post by nailer »

dpcan wrote: post #46
AlexC04 wrote: post #25

According to analytics, I've had 20,000 hits to my website in the last 30 days. 75% of those are reported to be running a windows operating system. As much as I respect the interesting point of view presented in the article, I sometimes wonder if sites like Hacker News and Slashdot don't put us all into some sort of exceptionally nerdy bubble-think. Like with the last week or so when everything I read seemed to say "…

The date of this article is April 2007. My guess is that it was re-posted here for a some humor or entertainment purposes only. I think everyone knows MS is far from "dead".

I think most people here know that MS is indeed dead in terms of not controlling things anymore (which is exactly what the article stated if you read it).

Who cares about browser percentage scores? People stopped making websites for IE-only years ago.

Post reply on HN