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Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#51

Post by [deleted] »

teekert wrote: post #12
baxtr wrote: post #9

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

That nobody can predict the future? However, there are people that have the intellect and the information to do it better than others. Btw, it contains stuff like this "The third cause of Microsoft's death was broadband Internet. Anyone who cares can have fast Internet access now. And the bigger the pipe to the server, the less you need the desktop.". Microsoft (or Satya did) also predicted the future, or read this p…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#53

Post by thijson »

bsnnkv wrote: post #37

It's quite impressive to see how much the Windows experience has improved for developers since this was written. I love being able to both do all of my web application work in a deeply integrated NixOS WSL VM and develop my own desktop environment power tools against a stable DWM using an officially supported Win32 API crate in Rust. Honestly I dread booting up my M1 MacBook Pro for work, the experience feels sluggis…

I've stuck with windows due to better power management support. Native Linux hasn't supported my hardware very well. Also my kids occasionally want to play Roblox or other games on my computers. Apple products are too expensive for me.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#54

Post by DanielHB »

gadders wrote: post #10
roenxi wrote: post #4

My favourite paragraph was "The most obvious is Google. There can only be one big man in town, and they're clearly it. Google is the most dangerous company now by far, in both the good and bad senses of the word. Microsoft can at best limp along afterward" Is Google dying or dead in this sense now too? I can't think of any company they've bullied recently but maybe I'm just not in their space. All the excitement seem…

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. If google had a serious person in the helm doing long-term strategy microsoft would already be dead and buried (or worse IBM-fied). Instead the CEOs stock market min-maxers took over.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#56

Post by behnamoh »

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.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#57

Post by bsnnkv »

dtquad wrote: post #47
bsnnkv wrote: post #37

It's quite impressive to see how much the Windows experience has improved for developers since this was written. I love being able to both do all of my web application work in a deeply integrated NixOS WSL VM and develop my own desktop environment power tools against a stable DWM using an officially supported Win32 API crate in Rust. Honestly I dread booting up my M1 MacBook Pro for work, the experience feels sluggis…

The de facto Linux game development workflow is now literally just to develop a Windows/DirectX game and making sure it works with Proton on Linux.

Relevant article from a few years ago: https://blog.hiler.eu/win32-the-only-stable-abi/

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#58

Post by gadders »

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…

Yes, I don't disagree. Microsoft did seem to be going the way of IBM.

But yeah, Google had no long term strategy, or ever gave any impression of a road map.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#59

Post by aleph_minus_one »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #16
baxtr wrote: post #9

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

It tells us that he’s only human. That’s what fans of him will say and they’re right. The problem is his fans subconsciously treat Paul graham as if he’s more right and more wise than a normal human. Makes sense given where we are. This incubator is founded by him so there’s a bit of that irrational hero worship there.

> The problem is his fans subconsciously treat Paul graham as if he’s more right and more wise than a normal human.

In quite some essays, Paul Graham portraits himself this way. You will either be annoyed by this, or you will like his essays. In the latter case, you will likely self-select yourself for this unwitting bias.

Re: Microsoft Is Dead (2007)

#60

Post by lotsofpulp »

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…

> - The 4 forces that lead to MS' demise are likely spot-on. And again "demise" in the same sense of IBM, "still exists, still makes money, nobody really cares".

IBM shareholders and employees can only dream their demise was in the same sense as Microsoft’s.

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