Comment by AlexC04 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AlexC04 | Hacker News Reader

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 "google sucks", "lynch google", "burn and raze googles offices so they can never spam search results again"

What was the rest of the world's reaction to this seemingly endless flood of histrionic blog posts about broken google search results? Crickets chirped and a tumbleweed yawned with boredom.

Microsoft isn't dead. From what I see, in the last 30 days Microsoft is a minimum of 75% alive and we'd all be very much richer if we didn't forget that.

With the utmost respect of course.

Without exaggeration, hyperbole will literally be the death of us all.

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 Computers. But how many of those people want to be on Windows? How many are using it because there's simply nothing else or because they're just too lethargic to switch? How many are using it simply because they're on their work computer and no one's seriously challenged MS in the corporate space?

So Microsoft could very well be dead and not even know it (as pg's addendum to this post makes clear). If you accept that thesis it has very relevant implications to the intended audience.

From a startup's perspective it means you shouldn't rely on Microsoft technology and need to pursue a strategy that supports Microsoft's desktop but doesn't build on it (which probably means web apps). From an investing perspective it means looking down the line for any possible desktop competitor that could be viable. Because once that viable competitor comes along the bottom will fall out of Microsoft's profits.

"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).

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.

I know several people who willingly chose Windows 7, and who are knowledgeable about computers.

In fact, 75% of IT people I know could be about right.

I've intentionally chosen Windows 7 + Windows Server to run my IT infrastructure, but the majority of the factors that motivated that choice were not due to much real work on Microsoft's part. QuickBooks, an internal Access database, our bookstore's POS software, and CAD software. All are needed, none of them run on Linux (and most of them don't run on Macs.)

Windows being the best choice of operating system is an entirely orthogonal issue from Microsoft being dead.

So your reasons for choosing Windows have everything to do with third-party software that only supports Windows, and nothing to do with Windows itself.

From a strategic perspective, that should be scary to Microsoft and anyone who is betting on Microsoft.

I think it has been like that for most of the lifetime of Microsoft, though.

If Linux games would have been as good as Windows games, none of my friends would ever have installed Windows.

We switched an entire team of about 10 people to Ubuntu just because we couldnt afford to buy any more Windows licenses. The only thing the team missed was Office and had a few issues with audio/video plugins for the browser which we solved mostly without any headaches. They re now happily using Google docs and Open Office.

Unfortunately, we are a race of habit and being served tea instead of coffee every morning is gonna piss us off but eventually we ll get over it.

I would seriously rather switch OS's than switch to tea from coffee :)

Between switching to Windows and switching to tea, I would go with tea. Switching to *BSD, OTOH, would probably be better than tea.

I think you are missing the point. The summary of the article is Microsoft may be a monopoly but it is not a danger for fragile new technology startups. They retain their existing monopoly but world domination is not in their radar anymore.

Edit: Another way to look at it, dead here means the opposite of "Stay hungry, stay foolish".

Of course MS is not dead in a way that noone uses them. But think about what you wrote - 75%. In Y2K, you wouldn't even monitor it - of course 99,99% use windows. You might start being interested in the weird trend of some people not using IE by then. This is where they were - the default, good-enough and present everywhere. It's not the case anymore - people have choice and as soon as they realise it, they will not choose MS anymore (as far as OS goes).

Some years ago, I didn't know people who knew about alternative OS-es. These days I don't know people using windows, who aren't considering buying an Apple product as their next computer. In this sense they definitely died recently.

I think you are making the wrong point. Windows is not dead and that's the truth but Microsoft is dead cause they are not doing any Web apps. They are not doing something innovative. They are just doing what they always did: writing Windows (a horrible OS) which comes with Internet Explorer a horrible browser which is not standard web conform.

They are still earning money but they are laying on their success AND I think that is what Paul Graham means as dead. They are dead because they are not playing the game anymore. They are just laying on their success with windows.

And thinking about more and more OSs are coming out this will not help them they need something for example to succeed on the tablet market and NO windows 7 and 8 or 9 is not the answer for a tablet.

I don't think Windows is a horrible OS in any meaningful way to the market. To the layman, there is not much difference in productivity, fun or functions between OSX and Windows 7, and most users don't need the features Linux provides.

because "innovative" = "we are copying something that's been around for decades on desktops, but now we're doing it ON THE WEB!!!/ON MOBILE PHONE!!!" ;P

(this is of course a great advance from the previous generation of thrilling innovation which was all about copying something that's been around for decades on mainframes/minicomputers, but ON A MICRO!!!) ;P ;P

Very well said. I'm a Linux advocate but you can't forget Window's has a massive market-share still, and will remain the case for a long time to come. I feel that most tech sties experience traffic anomalies, so they don't see what the true market share breakdown is.

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.

I was replying to the comment which argues MS is not dead because he gets a lot of Windows-based hits on his website.

And, to reply to your reply to my reply, I disagree. Microsoft is very much in control. I think Microsoft is the competitor you always have to worry about which makes them a powerful force, which puts them in control.

Yep, I thought you were agreeing with him, and that MS was still relevant in 2010.

To your second point: I disagree that Microsoft is the competitor you always have to worry about. They were in 2000. They stopped a long time ago. Perhaps you disagree, and that's fine, we'll leave it at that.

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