Anyway, if it isn't obvious, the article's credibility is killed by the use of the word dead. Microsoft clearly isn't dead it just isn't the biggest player on the internet, and isn't really a player in the start up space.
Except that it's 2014 and Microsoft is still relevant. The techy bubble on the west coast may all be using Mac's but microsoft products can still be found throughout the rest of the world.
I like PG, and love his essays, but this one was just bad. I'm not even talking about his prediction, just the way he puts it out there. It's just a very pathetic read.
For ~20 years Microsoft was a bully and received much criticism for it. Now they're just another tech company that's successful at the end of the day and has a lot of products out there being used by a lot of people. Now they're dead?
Give me a break. The whole Microsoft-hate bandwagon is absolutely pathetic to watch. It's just like the Apple-hate bandwagon.
I knew plenty of Mac users in 2004. They didn't feel like they were missing out on anything back then.
The recent past does not represent the normal state of affairs. Microsoft was not going to retain a monopoly forever, any more than IBM could've retained a monopoly. Yet IBM is larger today than it ever was as a monopoly.
Markets grow, and new markets open up. Microsoft doesn't need a monopoly in every market. What it needs is something that it doesn't yet have in the various consumer markets -- 20-30% share. Large enough to matter.
There are millions of people that are working off of microsoft exchange servers, using websites hosted by microsoft IIS, involved in environments managed using active directory, work collaboratively with others using sharepoint (there's lots of job opportunities as a shairpoint dev, by the way), .NET developers, people working with Azure and Office 365, use SQL server databases, using microsoft office products, having their traffic pass through UAG systems, and so and so on. In addition they're one of the leading tech companies when it comes to helping fight spam and cyber crime activity (when I say one of the leading tech companies I mean one of the leading tech companies that's mission statement isn't to mainly fight spam and cyber crime.)
Hyper-v, file shares, remote desktop gateway and services, the list of services microsoft has its hands in is very, very long. Microsoft does a whole hell of a lot more than just produce an office suite and an operating system.
Just because you're personally surrounded by linux and mac users doesn't mean microsoft is irrelevant. It just means your scope on the world is narrow enough that it's out of your personal bubble.
There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you recognize it for what it is - your own little world that is not a perfect representation of the real world.
If the premise is that Microsoft no longer has a death grip on the technology sector, with the ability to throw its weight in whatever direction it pleases whenever it pleases, then I would agree with that.
Dead? Not even close.
(But they may be dead in the not too distant future. i do not have a crystal ball. but right now they're hardly dead, 7 years after PG's essay.)
How? The author clearly doesn't mean "out of business" when he says "dead". He means that what Microsoft once was, or what it represented, is dead. The idea once conveyed by the word "Microsoft" is dead. It's not sensationalist clickbait, it's a metaphor.
It would have been better if had said he wished they were dead because he doesn't like them, or because he thinks they are bullies or he thinks they are ruining the web or something of that nature. I would respect that.
A bit contradictory, no?
On top of that, Azure is competitive and is gaining more and more traction, and the person who headed the Azure department is now the new CEO. Their gaming division (Xbox) is profitable, which is mostly a hardware field, and they're slowly getting a foothold in mobile and have purchased a big mobile hardware manufacturer.
Their development tools (Visual Studio and .NET) are immensely popular and they've managed to capitalize on the whole JavaScript thing by making it easy to develop with VS.
They're anything but dead.
Of course things like Bing aren't a success yet but if MSFT figures out what do with that they'll have something other than people just Google stuff on.
Not being large players in the areas mentioned doesn't imply that they are somehow "dead".
When PG wrote this, that's what Microsoft was. They were irrelevant in all the areas where interesting things were happening. Are they more relevant now? They seem like they might be, but it's hard to say. The essay is not about profit, it's about mindshare.
APPL may soon be the next MSFT if they don't have another full-sized iPad up their sleeves to wow us with very soon. A solar powered flying watch that reads your mind and predictively orders groceries. :)