Microsoft is Dead
paulgraham.com
paulgraham.com
A lot of commenters here seem to argue that Microsoft still has the vast majority of desktop installations, and that this isn't likely to go away soon. I agree (I don't like it, but I think it's true). But I also agree that Microsoft isn't a threat any more, like it used to be. And, on reflection, I agree that it is web apps that are making the difference.
I don't think that Word or Photoshop moving online is what really makes the difference, though. Every hoary Windows competitor has had a word processor and an image editor. (Sure, they didn't match Word feature-for-feature; does Writely?) But I believe a major reason that prevented people from switching has been the long tail of applications: "It doesn't have any accounting software for plumbers!"
The feeling that Microsoft had a secure monopoly came from the fact that these long-tail programs were all written for Windows, because that was what was economic for its developers. Word and Photoshop always had a Mac version. Accounting for Plumbers never did.
Now, these applications live on the Web. And while the people using them still might use Windows, it doesn't matter; it makes Microsoft money, but it doesn't buy them any leverage.
Another startup that just caught Techcrunch attention (and apparently got financed because the company has a real business model) is Gigya (http://www.gigya.com/) and they, too, are using Microsoft/IIS 6.0.
I'm not saying that there's a strong correlation between Microsoft and your success rate, but I just find it ironic.
The rest startups seem to not to have their business models and hoping for a buyout. Actually that includes Reddit as well. If you read Aaron's blog and see how they're desperate to get a "deal" from PG.
Note: I assume Microsoft/IIS 6.0 = ASP.NET
But that wasn't good enough for Microsoft. Microsoft informed me in their emailed order acknowledgment that I was some kind of felon: "To convert your counterfeit Windows XP software to a genuine copy of Windows XP using the new Product Key, you will need to download and run the Windows Product Key Update Tool on the same computer you used to purchase the electronic license for Windows XP."
The following week I received in the mail a Windows Genuine Advantage Kit for Windows XP Professional; it contained a letter asserting that I had "submitted a counterfeit report" with my order, and that this report would be "treated as confidential." Moreover, "...Microsoft's anti-piracy team investigates each and every lead we receive. Since investigations are ongoing and extremely confidential, we are unable to provide you with the status of the particular lead you have submitted. The length of time to bring about enforcements varies depending on the nature of a particular investigation."
Hateful monsters! Frightful miscreants! I suppose I deserve this for having anything to do with Windows.
Personally I don't think it is fair, but that's how licensing works under a monopoly.
Jonathan Allen
The "shrinkwrapped" license agreements are not really enforcable... at least not in a legitimate (eg: competant) court.
But, yep, you now deserve this for having anything to do with multiple convicted felon and pirate Microsoft.
Nobody of integrity openly deals with convicted felons, for the taint will corrupt our customer trust. We all switched a decade ago. Where were you?
Well, never too late!
The people now afraid of MSFT are not their competitors but instead their customers.
It was when I first read about that and researched it that I realized just how bad it was. It's like the customer isn't even #2 or 3 anymore. It goes something like:
1. Money
2. Killing competition (including open source)
3. Hollywood
4. Locking out hobbyists and increasing licensing restrictions
...I'm sure I'm missing some...
n. Serving the customer
Also, a few things to remember.
1. Search in only 10% done.
2. Pervasive devices are taking over as the key interface to systems.
3. Collaboration is the big wave on the web.
4. Privacy/Trust - things like google apps work for some data (and are a great addition) but add in trust and privacy in business and they're screwed. Open ID is thinking about identity, but there's a long way to go.
For these reasons there is a long way to go before anyone can be considered alive or dead. I for one think Google will be overtaken by someone in the not too distant future as well. It may be a resurgent Microsoft - remember Netscape.
Oh, the have an ace in their cards. Ray Ozzie is Chief Software Architect (a position Gates himself used to hold) and created probably the more powerful collaboration software in its time at Groove. He's been very quiet recently and his emergence may be their resurgence.
Not everyone is going to want to create 5 minute web 2.0 software to get bought by Google - a big change will emerge as happened with Netscape and AltaVista. Stay tuned.
Next Gen Search is exciting to think about. Pervasive - I personally want to degadgetize and surround myself with inexpensive, pervasive technology. (Why isn't bluetooth inexpensive?) Collaboration - If you listen to MS talk, they are significantly ahead in collaborative technologies. I can't speak to that, but would personally like a movement toward open document formats. OpenID - why are they important? I should do more reading, I might not understand the scope of that project. web 2.0 is bubblific. good luck to those hoping to make a quick buck. I wish better luck to those that aspire to create value, change computing and create sustainable business models.
The stallman cult thinks this and they have gone so far as to have protests against Apple when they sued microsoft! That's how twisted their socialist thinking is-- they support the monopolist against the underdog!
If you're 50 years old, get a mac, you'll find that its a hell of a lot easier to use than Linux.
To claim that its "superficial" is to not understand the real advantages of the Mac... alas, I suspect too many people like you reject microsoft and then reject Apple (because of FUD spread by MS or linux fans) and then go back to microsoft when they discover that Linux is a damn hard to administer desktop (for most people.)
I have been using unix for 20 years and I only run Linux in particular situaitons because generally the admin load is just not worth it. Why deal with it when Mac OS X is so much better? So, I use it on servers, but only when I am not able to use apple hardwware (They make great servers too....)
The thing about Apple is, its far better than people think... and most people have never tried it, and yet many of these peopel have a negative impression of it based on propaganda from MS proponents.
The reality is, you make money when you bring happiness to people. You make people happy and they want to give you money they want to buy more of your products because they want to keep being made happy again, or made even more happy.
Thus, the happier you make your customers the more money you make.
Further, making people happy, and making money are intrinsically moral things. Trading with people is honest and moral.
Those who talk of altruism speak of violence. Altruism is the destruction of your self to benefit others. (Literally). Thus socialists throw around the word "altruism" (and "Sacrifice" and a lot of other code words) to try and make it seem moral-- but at the root of it, what they are doing or advocating is putting a gun to your head and taking your money (and your money is just a representation of the labor you put in to earn it.)
So, don't you talk to me about morals-- when its clear you are advocating an immoral ideology.
The bottom line is this: Free people trade with each other and profit by trades that make people happy. This trade is moral, it is honest, and it is right. It is intrinsically peaceful.
Socialists oppose free trade, they believe in forcing people at gun point to "trade" on terms that the socialist approve of. This is not peaceful, this is not moral, and obviously the people who are having their lives threatened are acting under duress--- duress is not compatible with happines.
So, the next time you hear "sacrifice" come out of the mouth of a politician -- realize its not him that will be sacrificing-- its you and he's putting a gun to your head to get richer.
That is the language of the thief and the looter, the socialist and the immoral.
This is so obvious that I shouldn't have to say it-- but its amazing how twisted people's minds get when they are subjected to socialist propaganda day in and day out.
To think you just said people doing things that make them happy, because they make them happy is immoral!
You speak of corporations bringing happiness to people, but I would like to point out something that I heard a month or so ago. It used to be that people had necessities and very basic desires which were fulfilled by entrepreneurs (merchants and guildworkers) in a capitalist system. In the present-day US and several other countries, however, that is no longer the case. Companies used to be in the business of manufacturing goods to fulfill needs. Nowadays, they instead manufacture needs to sell goods. Why do you think advertising is such a huge industry?
It's all kind of funny when you consider the cycle. The current corporate structure relies on a large amount of drone workers doing the majority of the work for a small cut of the pay. The only way to make these workers do this work that no one in their right mind would do willingly is to pay them. Why do they need that money? To buy the very things that these corporations are telling them that they need to be buying. It's all a crazy, vicious cycle, and I'm afraid that it is the inevitable result of long-term capitalist societies. Do you see anything changing for the better in these regards?
In an Anthropology class a few years ago, we talked about studies that some researchers had done in comparing the lives of people in developed countries to hunter-gatherer tribes in South America and Africa. The people in these tribes typically spent 2-3 hours a day to provide their food and shelter, and the rest of the time was spent chatting, telling stories, singing, dancing, sporting, and other tribal activities. I would argue that that is happiness, not going to work 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week so that I can get a new car that gets me to work more comfortably.
To compare Open Source software to development at gunpoint is absurd. If I have an interesting idea for a piece of software that I would like to write, I am going to write the software and be very happy to share it with the open source community. This has nothing to do with violence; I have enjoyed the benefits of a completely free computing system with extensive functionality, and I am quite happy to return the favor. This is known as a gift society, not violent, immoral ideologies.
And this money-for-happiness equation that you are promoting looks a lot like pie in the sky. I worked for 2 years for a small grocer in a country gas station / food mart. The store had been in his family for something like 40 years, and he served a valuable need to the surrounding community in providing the only gas and groceries for 20 miles around. He and his wife worked long days and were by no means rich, but they made enough to live on. His regular customers knew him by name, and he was a regular bidder at the 4-H auctions every summer. Clearly, in this case, the exchange of money for goods is happy for everyone. Unfortunately, cutthroat companies like Wal-Mart move into town who have no concern for the well-being of the community, doing things like storing materials in parking lots which poison water supplies during rain, avoiding a golf cart security guard in their parking lot even though it has proven to reduce crime to 0%, relying on federal programs to cover worker health benefits, and driving all local businesses out and then moving out when the profit margins are no longer good. So the customers save money, yes, but they lose out in so many other ways. This is the problem with faceless corporations who do not see things at a human level.
In summary, my problem is not with capitalism, and I am not a socialist. I merely fear that the inevitable end of capitalism is the type of corporate society that has been steadily evolving in the U.S. and elsewhere, one in which paper and numbers are more important than people.
You contradict yourself.
Obviously you have a problem with capitalism because you beleive people should be forced at gunpoint to live the way you prefer.
This is because you value "paper and numbers" more than people.
Your idolizing of hunter gatherer societies is the kind of pseudo-science that has always been used to sell socialism.
Feel free to quit your job and go find food yourself. In alaska you are free to hunt to feed your family-- subsistence is prtected there (and its a good thing... nothing worse for the environment than environmentalists anyway.)
You talk about "Seeing things at a human level" but your idea of the "human level" is sticking a gun in someones face.
I never equated open source software wiht development at gunpoint-- so of course you had to say I did to try and make me out as crazy. People who voluntarily open source their software are Capitalists -- they are profiting (exploiting in your parlance) the works of thousands who decide to contribute to their open source software.
No, the violence ocmes in when you insist that companies must be restrained and people must be restrained from freely trading for each toher.
becauss of your pretend care for their spirit "So the customers save money, yes, but they lose out in so many other ways."
When you force walmart to stay out of your town-- you are using a gun to deny poor people the ability to feed themselves.
You, my freind, are a socialist. The spew of your post is pure socialist drivel. Its nonsense... and as long as socialists like you continue to spout hateful anti-human nonsense like that, I'll be asking the questiosn you can't answer.
Like:
Why not let people live in peace? Why do you insist on using violence to force people to live according to your (ignorant) ideas?
I'm not a philosopher nor a politician but the way you talk answers one of the unsolved questions I asked myself while reading some historical books: are there still people like that?????
And there you are.....
The one thing i can say though, is that I've taken plenty of courses on politics, and i know from your comments that you're just a tool who's so afraid of "socialist views" that you'll stamp down people who bring up valid points to your own. Oh, and before you start typing out a response, I'm not a socialist.
Capitalism is a great thing, it allows free enterprise and strengthens a society. people no longer have to work outside farming for 14 hours a day, they have the opportunity to work in a job and buy their food and other supplies; they have much more choice than our ancestors in the past (although one could argue from a philosophical point if this is truly makes them happy, but i'll save that for another rant). In short, people are not obligated to any one position or limit and can choose to do anything at all, since all jobs give money, or some equal form of payment.
But capitalism also gives people in a better position the ability to take advantage of others; since people are no longer self-sufficient and rely on money to accomodate their needs, it gives other people the ability to exploit these people (often with fear tactics or conformity) and make them think "they really need this new 2006 model with 8 cup holders and all-wheel drive," or that "the world is dangerous and a rapist could be just around the corner, so buy a gun to protect yourselves from those rap music-listening-hoodlums." this is present in our society, and you can see it in most advertising.
socialism attempts to protect people from themselves by making everyone equal, and instead of people providing for themselves, the government does. all in all the debate can continue in another discussion as to which one is superior.
i dont necessarily agree with brandon's comments about walmart being evil, because they don't MAKE you go there, and they don't try to convince you. you really don't have to go to walmart if you don't have to, its that simple.
at the same time, bitgeek, your incoherent babbling seems to point every problem with our society in the hands of socialists, and that people in a free society can't be evil, but provide a necessary service (which some do and some don't). its utterly stupid and ignorant, so please find a time machine and go to the 1950's where you belong
thats all. i know this has nothing to do with MS dieing or anything, just thought i'd stamp out another idiot's rambling today.
Sure, you CAN make money while bringing happiness to the people. As long as it doesn't touch you bottom line, that is. There is a landmark legal case from 1916 (Dodge vs Ford), that's now codified in most countries, that's illustrative of corporations priorities.
Ford (the man) wanted to use some of his company's huge profits to do good and make the customers happy. He paid his workers more than the going rate and reduced the price on the company's cars. He figured his company wouldn't have been where it was if it hadn't been for his customers. So this was a way for him to say "thank you" and be a responsible community citizen.
He got sued by some of Ford's (the company) stock holders, who argued that Ford (the man) had no business giving away their money, however good his intentions, and however happy the customers (in this case) would be. The stock holders won handily, and Ford (the man) was severely rebuked by the judge. So the law nowadays expressly forbids companies to do anything that may jeopardize the bottom line and the stock owners dividends.
Of course, companies can make people happy _as long as that's the best way to make more money_. But given the choice of making a lot of money while making customers happy and making more money by screwing them the corporations have no (legal) choice but to screw the customers.
As to your definition of altruism, that will have to stand for you. It's not a definition shared by very many. If you continue to use words with a definition you invent yourself, it's going to be difficult to communicate meaningfully with your peers. Not that I believe true altruism actually exist. But self interest can frequently masquerade as altruism quite effectively, and be virtually indistinguishable from it.
Your implied idea that capitalism has some monopoly on "free" trade is also so patently ridiculous that I can't even be bothered to comment on it.
And as to "free choice" in the capitalist countries of today, what choice do I have, for example, if I want to watch my movies, or TV shows, or sports events, or news without commercials? None. Other than that Alaskan cave you mention. And even if I take the draconian step of not watching TV at all, because I dislike the commercials so much, I STILL have to pay for those commercials every time I go shopping. Some choice, huh? I can give you more examples like this if you're interested.
And returning to trade. You're not , even in the US, allowed to trade in everything you like. You're for example forbidden to trade in heroin, where you actually face that gun you were speaking about if you don't comply (or his brother, the chair). But maybe that's socialism, what do I know?
As a concluding remark, I find it interesting that everytime any of the serious organizations (american mostly) compile reports on the happiest countries in the world, the US are beaten by this or that "socialist" country. But I guess these organizations must be socialist themselves. An no, I'm not paranoid. I swear! They're REALLY out to get me!!!
For 20 years Microsoft was my whole world. MS-DOS, old Windows, new Windows. DLLs, ODBC, IIS, and all the rest of it. Keeping up with Microsoft was a chore. I'd learn to program DLLs, and by the time I was good at it, they were pushing Active X. Or I'd learn to use named pipes, only to find that everyone was using sockets. Everything was a confusing mismash of competing APIs, old code, new code, multiple ways of doing the same thing with no good explanation. Finding help in MSDN was a nightmare. Sometimes they'd just repackage or rebrand the same technology for no other reason than to confuse you. DNA? What the hell was that?
One day my boss asked me to do a project in Java. What an eye-opener. Everything made sense. Everything I needed was there, but without tons of redundant, obsolete material. Today I run Linux servers, program in Java, deploy on JBoss with MySQL databases. I ditched Visual Studio in favor of Eclipse. I love working with this stuff. I feel truly sorry for people who are forced to limit themselves to Microsoft technology.
For 10 years, Java was my whole world. Servlets, old EJB, new EJB, JSP, JDBC, Spring, Hibernate, JSF, and all the rest of it. Keeping up with enterprise Java was a chore. I'd learn to program EJB 1 and by the time I finally figured it out, they were pushing EJB 2. Or I'd learn Entity Beans or Struts, only to find nobody was using it anymore. Everything was a confusing mismash of competing APIs, old code, new code, multiple, dogmatic ways of doing the same thing with no good explanation. Finding help with this J2EE crap was a nightmare. Somtimes they'd just repackage or rebrand the same technology for no good reason. Hibernate? EJB3? J2EE? JEE 5? WTF?
One day, in spite of my boss's mandate that we were strictly a Java shop, I started to rewrite a struggling project in Ruby on Rails. What an eye-opener. What took months and 5 people now took days and 1 person. Everything I needed was there, but without tons of redundant, repetitive lines of boilerplate code and XML -- and without endless compile-deploy-restart cycles.
Today I run Linux servers, program in Ruby, have abandoned JBoss, and use Apache and Mongrel with MySQL databases. I ditched Eclipse in favor of TextMate. I love working with this stuff. I feel truly sorry for people wo are forced to limit themselves to Java technology.
(Sorry for the too-obvious, too-easy parody. But I couldn't help myself -- it was the natural response to someone praising the virtues of Java during a discussion about a dying, irrelevant company.)
For, heck I don't know, maybe two years, GUI text editors were my whole world. UltraEdit (needed it for reading EBCDIC data), JEdit, Eclipse, Komodo, Kate, GEdit, each with their uniquely useful featuresets.
One day I determined that I would run vim and vim only for all of my text-editing needs. Since that day roughly a year and a half ago I've developed some quadzillion immediate-throwaway macros via 'q1q@1', developed a .vimrc that follows me from machine to machine that I couldn't survive without, integrated into various little ruby scripts that I use.
I don't have the passion to do the parody right, but I figure while we're at it I'll push vim where I can. And I've pair coded for around a year on a RoR project where we've done all of the development in TextMate, so it's not like I don't have any TM experience :) ++| ft(m)w
I love working with this thing. I feel truly sorry for people who are limiting themselves to a single-mode text editor.
Not that that's any less dense
Then, Miguel and the gang came along and wrote Mono, and pretty much re-implemented everything of value from .NET, without the licencing overheads of running in a windoze only environment. That basically took the wind out of the sails for Microsoft, and they've been floating around, almost impassive, pretty much just watching the emergence of ASP/SaaS computing, web 2.0, AJAX, Ruby on Rails, blogging, wikipedia, bittorrent, skype, asterisk and everything else from the sidelines ever since.
I think the real problem comes back to people. It's a bit like Paul's articles on Great Hackers and what motivates them. I know plenty of great hackers (and I would like think that a couple of startups later I am at least a good one! - though I find myself more and more on the business side in recent times, growing our company and developing our people - good young hackers themselves). I even used to know a few guys at Microsoft (Australia and Singapore). The last "good" person that I knew who went to Microsoft (from a PhD programme at Melbourne Uni) joined in 2002. Since then, nobody I know even went near the place. If you can't attract great people, then you won't build great products, and everything else is a forgone conclusion. Microsoft has built great cash-cow businesses, and great fortunes for its founders, but I don't believe it will ever be a player again.
- Hook everyone up to a high speed connection.
- Not worry about OS or platform as long as they could run Firefox or IE
- Sign them up with Google Apps ( http://www.google.com/a/ )
- Sign them up with a web-based accounting system such as ACCPAC Online, ePeachtree, Oracle Small Business Suite, etc if they do in-house accounting
- Spend 45 minutes showing them how to admin the system via the web
- Present my bill
Of course Microsoft is dead.
Also what I think most people are overlooking is that while you can run INFRASTRUCTURE services on any OS, those are services that everyone has. Most companies out there have some custom grown app that differentiates them. They use this app internally to do their specialized work on. These apps run almost exclusively on windows simply because it has not been worth it to develop them for the other operating systems.
Everyone is trying to find a reason not to use Microsoft, but it is my opinion that if you take an objective look at the operating systems out there (right now) it is still the best OS. Do you think it is easier to find someone to support windows or do you think it is easier to find someone to support OS X? If you hire an employee, what are the odds that they will be familiar with Windows vs Linux? Do you have an existing investment in Windows? If so how long a ROI is there on scrapping your existing config for something new? What are the odds that the software that someone suggests to you will run on Windows vs running on Unix? Why would you want to limit your options to only those programs that have web front ends when you can have a rich selection of Desktop programs and web interface programs?
Maybe in 10 years we will be at a point where Microsoft isn't in control but its also possible in 10 years that someone new will come on the scene and own everyone. While different can be good, different for the sake of different is not usually worth it.
Also as a side note: Google Apps may be a killer in about 5 years but right now its pretty infantile. I've really tried to use it but honestly OpenOffice or Microsoft Office as so much better its not even funny.
Every single one of us had no intention of working for Microsoft and joked about it intensely. Microsoft had be relegated to the realm of other boring places to do our type of work but that you interview at for practice (and, you know, just in case that job at google doesn't pan out).
In my interview, the topic of digg.com came up and neither interviewer had heard of them. I said they were like a type of slahsdot, or maybe magnolia. Never heard of those either I quipped "oh, maybe you're not involve much in the web / web development world".
"Actually, I'm one of the project managers for Internet Explorer."
The interview went downhill, from Microsoft, from that point forward. My heart wasn't even in it "just in case" anymore.
I think Paul is right that Microsoft cannot do that anymore. The dominant platform is the web now, and Microsoft is not a dominant player there, let alone the owner. The web platform does not have an owner.
Currently Google is the most dangerous company for companies who bring a new application, but even they are not as dangerous as Microsoft was. It is still not perceived by its users as the company that brings the web platform.
For Google to crush MySpace or YouTube for instance, is not as easy at all as it was for Microsoft to crush Netscape.
What does it mean to be dead then?
What I think Paul Graham is saying, and this is underscored by the notion of "being dangerous," is that Microsoft is no longer the place where new ideas and true innovation is going to come from. Startups are born from fresh ideas, and the companies that are dangerous to them are places like Google which seem to being designed to produce competitors to startups.
Microsoft will continue to sell $50 OEM copies of Windows to Dell and licenses of Office but this is a business on the decline. Microsoft is Old-tech stuck in the era of desktop applications, closed development strategies, and the economics of software licensing.
The financial effects of MS being dead are already showing some effect, MSFT has moved much since the dot-com boom, but it will take 5-10 years and continued blunders from MS to see some real damage.
What is the difference between "true innovation" and -- I don't even know how to ask this exactly -- "untrue innovation"?
From GUI perspective MS did a lot of things that X and MacOS "adopted" or tried to adopt silently, so to say.
After all, MS does hire talented staff. Just don't underestimate them.
From this entire business scene only Google is able to get money from us. We are willing to pay only for Google Ads because they are cheap, straight, and delivers ROI next minute.
We go connected for nothing, we create for nothing and we get revenue by partnering Google.
Any other company who does not follow this business model is, or will be dead. Nobody ever will pay for any tools to create an online business but we will share our revenue with who generates us profit.
Blurring that line is a mistake.
Here is what I have observed about people. In general, people with vested interests do not lie. What they do is pick and choose the truths they want to share.
So someone with an investment in an online photo editor might say that "people are now writing online photo editing applications," but is unlikely to say, "that are faster and have more features than Photoshop."
Is that bad? Of course not. There are this other group of people with no alleged interest in the subject. They are called journalists. And you know what? My observation is that they are much less reliable than peopel with a "vested interest."
This year, we are starting a new venture. This time, all the developers run on Mac and all the servers are either hosted or running linux. All the presentations are make using Keynote, the intranet is a wiki (no more word) and some google spreadsheets. No one is using Office. The end result: we have not payed a single dollar to Microsoft.
Although big corporations are locked in, the trend is clear. MSFT is going to need a major turn around to get back on their feet.
I think Apple's resurgence required that Jobs be pushed out. I feel that his time in the wilderness helped him grow in ways that would not have been possible if he had stayed safely ensconced at Apple.
Instead of being at a hugely successful company like Apple, he spent 12 years focused on the challenges at NeXT and Pixar. And the challenges at NeXT were significant. Both companies brought him into contact with very different customer bases. For example, NeXT had a number of major investment banks as big clients. (Granted, Jobs would have had contact with them as CEO of Apple, but as their customer, which is rather different.)
From the commencement speech he gave to the Stanford graduating class of 2005:
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
"I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."
I think this pretty much disputes Paul's notion that Jobs' being fired from Apple was somehow a bad thing. It was bad in the sense that the people who took over nearly destroyed Apple, but it also set-up the conditions for a reborn Jobs to return and make the company into what it is today.
Reason (5): Steve Ballmer took over from Bill Gates as CEO in Jan 2000. Chief Sales Guy takes over from Chief Egghead and the company stops building products for its real users.
Reason (6): Web 1.0 hiring. Microsoft hired a huge number of people in 1998-2001, people who were too stupid or incompetent to get a job pretty much anywhere else. The good people all went to web startups then. This was the first crack in Microsoft's "we have the world's best people" armor. B players hire C players, and it goes downhill from there.
University S/W Buyer: "We have to buy some MS Software." University S/W Boss: "Why?" University S/W Buyer: "Its $5.00 dollars per CD" University S/W Boss: "Ok, then I guess we have no choice."
So MS keeps their software standard at colleges, which influences students' buying habits (god forbid they grow accustomed to Mac or Linux and lose their fear of them).
Ironically, the business that views their 'competitors' as harmful and does not embrace and view them in a positive way, will not benefit long term and will create many enemies - besides losing public trust . If Google is true to their 'do no evil' mantra, then they may possibly be the nemesis of big business and enjoy a very long business life cycle.
ASP.NET is a really strong player in the web, and ATLAS has given them serious AJAX support. It is still pretty buggy now, but has the promise of the same easy drag and drop development that revolutionized Windows developement.
Or XNA? The next generation of game deveopers are already cutting their teeth on C# and XBox.
Or Robotics Studio? They are positioning themselves to corner the OS market for Robotics the same way they did for PCs back in the 80s.
As long as Microsoft has the hearts and minds of millions of developers, they aren't dead.
.Net shows what we have needed for a long time. A consistent development platform where it doesn't really matter what language you program in. Everything gets compiled down the same way, everyone uses the same API and libraries. But the syntax is locked away and guarded (big surprise coming from a monopolist). You can't easily find it, and you sure as hell can't easily change it. And even if you do, the byte-code doesn't offer any more power than the over-language. All you can do is beg for a change, and maybe a year later you will get a watered down version.
Free us from our syntax chains.
You've gone on at length about how cool Lisp is. How it can be morphed into whatever language is needed at the time. So prove it. Fix .Net by describing the language syntax in Lisp. Give the end programmer the ability to see and adjust their chosen language to behave as needed on a project by project basis. And do it in a way that will actually get used.
Instead of making a 100 year language, make a 100 year platform where the language can shift as the problems and fads do. It won't be easy, but it might just change the world.
And you know what "for (x) in Y {;;some more code here}" means the same way you know what "x= someFunc(a,b,c)" means. You look it up. Of course it is best if the developer uses good names and comments so you can make a good guess by looking at it.
Yea it's hard, and yea it's dangerous. All powerful things are. I don't like being told I can't have something because you think I am too stupid to use it safely. Some people won't be able to use it, and everyone at one point will be too inexperienced to use it correctly. But thats why you layer the more common languages on top. And if you are running an enterprise shop where you can't guarantee the quality of the maintenance developers, don't let your developers use it. etc...
Because it's too powerful is not a very convincing argument for me.
I agree that OS X has been partly responsible for converting people away from Windows, but equally responsible is a growing Linux community. Since Linux came out, it has been slowly gaining some of Microsoft's desktop market share, especially since Gnome and KDE have gotten more polished and Ubuntu made its number 1 bug Microsoft.
I was a bit disappointed to see no mention of open source software, because it is not Google Docs that is replacing MS Office, but Open Office. GIMP has been slowly replacing Photoshop since it came out, not Snipshot. Likewise with Firefox overtaking Internet Explorer, Thunderbird being the first to stand in for Outlook, and gcc has been the compiler of choice for years.
In summary, I agree that Microsoft is on the decline and that we are seeing software shift to the Internet, but I never think the desktop will go away. The number of desktops running Windows and other Microsoft software, however, is going to continue to decline. It's one thing to offer free software on the Internet alongside Google ads, it's another entirely to be able to install entirely free, ad-free software with no strings attached, which is an opportunity that the open source community has afforded us.
Not that I like that company very much, I'd rather go without them as they are not only causing shadows to fall on an otherwise fertile ground, but they also manage to dry out those fertile grounds by taking over and taking in.
And now that they have finally found that they could do patents by means of bribing and replicating existing technology and forge that into something that would even more so protect their grounds, i.e. the global IT market, it seems to me as if we were in for something more, even more treacherous than what we have seen so far.
Now, what is true is that M$ has long led the pack and they for sure have left that pole position of being the scapegoat running, but they sure will manage to take the lead back by simply replicating existing technology and research. By that they have gone through a process of accepting other people's technological advances and by incorporating them into their infrastructure and overall corporate culture they will slowly try to regain their old status.
It would be a nice move, however, to give them the death blow by asking them, in court, how many LOC of open source software they have included in their past projects by simply rewriting the existing code?
How Microsoft could crush Google in one easy step: http://tinyurl.com/2y8dbh
It might be a viable strategy, but hardly an easy step. If Microsoft simply offered it as an option, it's unlikely that anyone would care.
"Hey users, download this and block Google ads!"
Users say, "What are google ads and why should I care about blocking them?"
Or, Microsoft sneaks a blocker in via internet explorer and enables it by default. If they're lucky, it won't break anything else and Google won't be able to hack around it, but either way Google would sue.
1985: Windows 1.0 was a totally insufficient response to the Macintosh. There were plenty of other Window Managers too, all superior (oops, not Topview, now that was an inferior product). Lotus and Borland is going to kill Microsoft with superior applications. 1990: Microsoft put out Windows 3.0. Still DOS inside. ACE consortium wants to kill Microsoft with Motif. 1995: Netscape is the latest presumptive Microsoft killer, IE is an inferior product. Sun unveils Java, purported Microsoft killer. Windows 95 looks nice, still very much DOS at heart. Constant refrain during the latter 90's: Desktop Linux is going to kill Microsoft... 2000- The Web/Sony is going to kill Microsoft.
And it's not like the cool kids ran Microsoft products in 1990 or 1995 either. The tastes of an elite doesn't necessarily reflect the future of the broader market.As long as Apple won't let you run OSX on non-Apple hardware it can't be anything but a niche product.
Sure, Microsoft is vulnerable, but so is Google or Apple or any other company in this business. I don't know why Microsoft are underestimated so often, it might be that we root so much for the underdog that we fail to see what the big meanies strengths are.
That question is not asked today, even as a few years back. I was trying to get a patch management company going, and that 8 or so VCs I met didn't even asked if this is something Microsoft would get into.
And from what I understand, today's questions are more along the lines of - how can you beat google.
-Tai
While you lay out several interesting point and are right on the fact that Microsoft is facing some serious challenges. It is not dead by any means and still exists in the game.
You point out some reasons Microsoft why is "dead": "AJAX and Javascript is the new programming model of choice" I am currently developing a web 2.0 venture namely UReporting. Our Project is based almost entirely on Microsoft technologies. We had the option to use both LAMP based development or ASP.Net/ MS Sql. We chose Microsoft as it served all our needs and then some. Mapping, mobile, streaming, AJAX, Scalability, Community building you name it we are doing it. I have nothing against Javascript or AJAX but I can assure you Microsoft technologies can do everything that AJAX or Javascripting can. Also Ajax for ASP.NET is widely avaialable and used. This is a view not from someone who funds ventures but an actual entreprenuer seeking to minimize costs and develop a scalable and efficient platform.
"Buy all the good "Web 2.0" startups. They could get substantially all of them for less than they'd have to pay for Facebook."
Interesting point especially coming from someone who funds such venture...
In conclusion, While microsoft is definately facing some challenges today (normal for all major businesses), there is no indication they are even close to where you claim them to be.
Have a Good Day
Danial Jameel www.UReporting.com
Exeeding my goal since 1997, converting one computer and/or person each week to Open Source, usually GNU/Linux, but, have done some BSD (yes, there are some 25 of them!), I am fighting the lock-in monopolism of BOTH Apple/Macintosh and the multiple convicted felon Microsoft.
Major reasons people switch, from my experience: 1. Simplicity of use - GNU/Linux and BSD are immune to the "114,000 Microsoft Virus Definitions" and provide thousands of included applications: games, suites, browsers.
2. Users are tired of having to become a computer technician and spend 2 hours or more each week trying to clean or prevent Microsoft virus, trojan, malware infestations.
3. Disgruntled that Microsoft treats paying customers like criminals, but, now aware that convicted felons act that way, thus, WGA, and in Vista, corporate Microsoft spyware with a "shutdown feature"! Why would anyone accept this?
4. Realization that Microsoft and Mac will sell included free stuff, without proper conscience, and worry about the 'details' such as royalties, customer support, or customer satisfaction, "later"!
5. Awareness that 15 day TRIAL WARE is NOT a selling point for new Dell, HP, Compaq, Gateway computers... it is a dis-incentive, thus the great migration to FOSS, where all the FREE software is self protecting, at no extra penalty to the customer.
Yeah, http://distrowatch.com has it, and http://livecdlist.com has it Live!
Yes M$ dying has to do somethng with Karl Marx, too - let me put aside "sick and twisted" for a moment. Not even prime flagships of economy, which of BitGeek knows about, weren't able to undermine one simple sentence from Marx's "Das Kapital" - Only (human) labour and labour only can produce new value. Not money - labour. There is no need, I presume, to point out the quantity of labour pumped into the "market" since early 1990's on radically different principals then ones driving the dead.
Another view could also come from the economy principals. Shortly it is a story of smart and dumb monopols. The smart ones optimize the production level - the dumb ones optimize the profit. The dead rocketed profit (and extra-profit) sky high.
Personally I do not thik that the future is in web-based IT. It simply is not cost effective - why the hack should I have powerfull desktop just to run application on the server. For me it server centric IT was already seen and the come back is (could be) no more than a cycle in everladting evolution of IT.
There's no question that Microsoft is still dominant in the areas they care about, and because of that dominance they're likely to stay there. At this point, I think people understand that dominance intuitively and so don't really even try to beat Microsoft, especially since the web-as-a-platform thing is looking so exciting.
I have to be honest, I loved the article, it gave "kind of" the same information but from a different view.
I agree to the most of what has been said, and I do NOT disagree with the rest, but it seems to be little bit early to say so, and I am talking about Web Applications, I teach computer technical certification curriculum (A+, Network+ Server+, and yes some of MCSE's courses as well), when my students (the young ones mostly) ask me what career path do you advice us to pursuit, I say IMHO, MS is an old news, look how Google is changing the way we live, the way we think, I would say, go for web development (AJAX), yes there would still be need for C# and the rest of the other programming languages (at least at the server side and the client OS), but the real volume would be at the web.
The part on which I think it is too early to say so is : On other part of the planet (and I am sure in some part of the US as well as I've read in some of the comments below) the fast internet connection is not available (if any in some parts of the world), I agree that one day sooner or later this is inevitable, but it might not be as soon as (NOW).
Somewhere else we have discussed this issue few months ago, it can be found here.
http://www.syrian-it.net/forum/index.php?topic=25.0
Regards
CerberuS
How people are coping with this new reality? There are, in my view, two different attitudes. People more sensitive to hype are buying expensive Apple laptops even when they are simply overkill for their real needs. Programmers buying Apple laptops just to run Textmate are similar to fashion victims buying the latest Gucci handbag. Other people are more rational and choose cheap but sound Linux boxes (especially the Ubuntu flavor).
I think 90% of computer users can live with Ubuntu without any problem. Of course the desktop software libraries for Linux are very meagre compared to Microsoft and Apple's universes but we've just stated that desktop software is dead: web apps' user experience is the same on every platform. The operating system really doesn't matter. Don't you have other needs to satisfie instead of buying an expensive and useless Apple fashion laptop? Buy a cheap laptop, install Linux and enjoy your life!
And what about the business side of the moon? What will happen when companies will suddenly discover they don't longer need desktop software? Companies are more cost-conscious and I assume they will migrate to Linux en masse.
And Microsoft's main problem is, has always been, and is killing them now - that their software is rubbish. The DOS TSR model they have pushed since the 80's could only go so far. UNIX models are now, we know with 20-20 hindsight, the only viable long term OS model.
And what did M$ bring to the table, exactly? Everyone says "They made the desktop a reality when Apple were charging too much!" - maybe so, but did you NEED that desktop? No, really, seriously, did you need it?
PC's were incapable of running serious apps simultaneously until about the time Linux's X started to really work. Word 5 for DOS was probably the last decent version of Word. OS/2 was a near-perfect OS for small scale applications There were others, nearly all forgotten.
So what was Windows? I'll tell you. A backplane that allowed Word and Excell to be run at the same time.
I'll re-iterate that.
Windows was only ever: A backplane that allowed Word and Excell to be run at the same time.
All the hard work is done by the application writers.
AND - before you squawk "Driver Database! Driver Database!" - that's the same thing, the work was thrown onto the manufacturers whilst Microsoft just provided a truly awful API for them to work with, then another, then another....
Really.....Windows never brought much along at all. It is one of the most amazing marketing parlour tricks ever pulled off, like Madonna, like WMD's in Iraq - newsy and flashy and utterly empty. "Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing..."
2005? Man you HAVE been under a rock haven't you? Hacker? Sigh...ok here's some coaching for you the next time you want to front.
1. - "Hackers" don't call themselves hackers, poseurs call themselves hackers. (and anyone reading this saying "but I'M a hacker.." guess wha? YOU r a poseur.)
2. - Web 2.0 is just another BUZZWORD. Like AJAX, LAMP and (gasp) blog. Duh, it's the web dummy, it's made of ALL KINDS OF TECHNOLOGIES.
3. - PHOTOSHOP over the web? Not for a LONG time buddy, IF EVER. Oh wait, lemme guess: "The network IS the computer" right? When will you hypemasters get the drift that not EVERY app is right for a BROWSER? Let me put this nice and easy for you, SOME APPS WILL GO TOTALLY WEB, MOST WON'T. You can't whittle every peg to fit your web-hole...you webhole.
4. - Google became BMOC BEFORE their IPO. If you were any good as a venture capitalist you would have seen that.
5. - SURPRISED to see lamers running windows? What, did you think they would be running Linux (sorry, GNU)? Not everyone wants to spend the $$ for a Mac. (Disclaimer: I do.)
C'mon man, smarten up. Oh, and yeah, IBM lost it's monopoly WAAAAY B4 2005. I think it was called OS2...maybe they should have hired a rock band...anyone have one of those Win95 discs with Weezer on it?
You were right about one thing. This is OLD NEWS. Dumbass.
If they did not have so much cash I would short the stock.
Davo
They introduced VS.Net and again they were able to provide services to the enterprise. Then it killed the Sony Playstation.
And to everyone who missed the point, I think thats what PG means with dead. They are not direct threat to someone starting-up --because their products are on the market which is the platform for accessing web services (Windows and IE), which web services is the new trend to bringing something of value to users), as much as Google is (because web services is their essential market) or another startup doing something similar.
I think MS will really worry when mobile devices become your desktop...But they seem to be catching up there too... Maybe that explains acquiring Tellme for 800 million few weeks ago...
But does anybody even remembers MS's attempt to make a video sharing site. Whats was its name? I can't even remember...
Also, a few things to remember.
1. Search in only 10% done.
2. Pervasive devices are taking over as the key interface to systems.
3. Collaboration is the big wave on the web.
4. Privacy/Trust - things like google apps work for some data (and are a great addition) but add in trust and privacy in business and they're screwed. Open ID is thinking about identity, but there's a long way to go.
For these reasons there is a long way to go before anyone can be considered alive or dead. I for one think Google will be overtaken by someone in the not too distant future as well. It may be a resurgent Microsoft - remember Netscape.
Oh, the have an ace in their cards. Ray Ozzie is Chief Software Architect (a position Gates himself used to hold) and created probably the more powerful collaboration software in its time at Groove. He's been very quiet recently and his emergence may be their resurgence.
Not everyone is going to want to create 5 minute web 2.0 software to get bought by Google - a big change will emerge as happened with Netscape and AltaVista. Stay tuned.
Also, I can see Microsoft changing already. .Net Framework v3.0 is actually impressive (which follows tradition: MS always needs three tries to deliver something that is any good).
They're definitely catering to the web now with WPF+WPF/E+XML+Atlas+Expression tools, etc.; these are acually great tools (even if rough around the edges) and they can exist and be used alongside all the open source and standards stuff (yes, WPF/E runs on say Firefox on Linux as well); there is no conflict anymore.
So, take your average Windows developer/ISV: they know Windows stuff and now they get a bunch of extra tools to help them develop for the web. Why on earth would they switch to Linux or Apple development? By staying with Windows they can slowly migrate their apps and their customers to the web without disrupting anything.
And MS has both the resources and the patience to go the distance with this.
MS Dead? Nah, don't see it happening. MS no longer to be feared? Sure, but, uh, in what way does that matter, except to incumbent startups?
What kind of world do you live in, jvdvyah?
Suppose you spent considerable resources learning Java, and one morning M$ wakes up a says; "what company or technology should I kill today?" and they decide to kill Java.
Suppose M$ bribes a public (or private) manager, or a State Senator (Marc Pacheco from MA comes to mind) because they don't like ODF. If you were betting on ODF you are suddenly collecting unemployment.
-RFH
Now that getting apps to the users is easier I think people need to tackle the next problem: Mobile. Currently developing apps for mobile is possibly harder than for the desktop. The operators restrict you and the handsets are fragmented and inconsistent. Even with the supposedly crossplatform java has different api's on different handsets.
Perhaps the mobile problem could be solved in the same way as the desktop with web apps. We would need reliable, fast wireless broadband coverage and good mobile browsers that follow the same standards. I dont see this happening for 5 or so years.
Without allowing web apps to access phone api features I'm not sure if this is the best solution. All I can see is that whoever solves the mobile problem has a chance to be a new tech giant.
In the space of YCombinator, start-ups are lucky to be targeting a tenth of that small move. They're not dangerous to those players because they've simply stepped beyond that level of playing the game. Sure, one of those start-ups could emerge to be the next big idea, but Microsoft can afford to sit back and acquire them or jump into the market when they see the opportuntity, after a couple attempts at a profitable model have assumed some of the risk. They have no need or incentive chase every little opportunity. Their not going to get it right every time, they missed both online auctions (eBay) and walk-up ad serving (Google), but missing these hardly renders the company dead or irrelevant.
If I controlled MS, I would try to develop a better platform for web apps than Firefox (which is definitely possible). I'd use patent-encumbered APIs, which I would share while trying to build market share, and then force my competitors to stop using once they were entrenched. Maybe somebody smarter than me could come up with a better idea, but the point is that it's probably still possible for them to leverage their OS near-monopoly into a web near-monopoly.
It would have been far easier for them if they had started earlier. Firefox would have been easy to kill 3 or 4 years ago. But MSFT has so much money and such a large installed base that they can get away with a lot of screw ups before they really cease to be a threat.
I agree that, for the time being, entrepreneurs don't really have to worry about MS. But they're not really dead. They're just comatose.
P.S. We need to remember that Microsoft has Xbox 360 and the Zune. All which work with Windows.
I think one reason people are less afraid of Microsoft is they're doing things that are less scary. I agree with one commenter that customers might fear them more than entreprenuers do. They're gradually making their client technologies more cross-platform, not Windows specific. Customer requests were probably a big part of that, but it may reflect a change of consciousness on the part of Microsoft's workforce, too.
I think Microsoft will remain relevant, just less scary.
I think Google's gotten a little scary with the deal they made to censor search results in China. They found an exception to their "don't be evil" motto.
Further, I think that even on the desktop things are going to change and fast.
I don't think people realize just how well Apple is doing.
Their Mac sales are up something like %50, but they havent' really experienced network effects yet... as MS fails to come up with anything inspiring, PC owners are going to try switching in larger and larger numbers.
We aren't yet seeing the watershet that this is yet-- but the Mac has moved from the margins to a viable maisntream possibility.... and as PCs bought between 2004-2006 come up for replacement, a huge number of those machines will be replaced with Macs.
It was only in 2006 that people outside the software and web industry really started to see the Mac as a viable alternative.
Personally, I am starting to feel a bit odd, since suddenly there are all these new Mac users.
When the Mac becomes mainstream, I'll lose the comfortable non-conformity I've enjoyed since 1988.
Middle ware apps - with java script clients , a language where few people have the required skils - A non deterministic rending system for the UI with archaic postbacks - A back end which is also badly dated - an inefficient protocol that sens 10-13 bytes of data for each byte if you need to send binary data .. or you need to encode it. - A slow and polluted UI . as marketers push flash etc into pages as well as browser addins - Security issues due to the browser architecture itself.
For a limited number of companies who can afford to hand craft their javascrips ( ie not ASP.NET / server components) and who need broad reach Web 2.0 is good , but for most enterprises its a poor solution. Delivering java /.Net apps to your clients is far cheaper / more maintanable model with betetr user experience.
I have had a look at Silverlight(WPF/E ) and it seems to have much better rendering/performance and be more elegant but its from Microsoft.
Regards,
Ben
The key to the future i believe is the right mix of offline and online capabilities in applications. Microsoft has been kind of late in putting offline capabilities to many of its products. But that doesn't mean they are dead; they have the resources and ability to create paradigm shifts in this business. The fact that a person like Ray Ozzie (who is more or less associated with network computing and collaboration) is now overlooking the software giant's product teams also sends indications that Microsoft will start looking into the online/offline match. Infact the concept of "internet services disrupted", term coined by Ray Ozzie in a recent talk, precisely shows the direction in which Microsoft is headed.
1. Microsoft's software is unmaintainable, without throwing titanic amounts of money at it. This means that if Microsoft experiences declining sales on its basic products (Windows, Office), the products themselves will disappear. In a decade, Wine may be all that is left of Windows.
2. The price of Windows is increasing, as the price of computers is plummeting. A $2000 computer with a $100 operating system works. A $500 computer with a $200 operating system doesn't. Windows should cost no more than $20 today. Microsoft's model is clearly unsustainable.
3. The biggest benefit from Microsoft alternatives isn't replacing Windows, the benefit is being able to do things that were never possible with Windows. Linux bootable CD/flash is a wonderful approach for single-purpose devices, which is what most of the world wants almost all computers to be.
I've been programming computers for 40 years now, and this is about the third major transition I've been through. It is by far the most fun.
A couple of things still slowing down the transition.
1.) Broadband is not yet universal. Rural areas don't have it always and it they do, it is pricey to get. 2.) The installed base will use Win OS's for quite a while still (i.e., Office, engineering apps, business apps), my bet is on a ten year transition. 3.) There is still and will always be value in a stand alone system with an operating system and a cpu onboard for the same reason that the internet was invented. Millions of independently functional and capable cpu's+OS is a million times more robust than central-source server farms having it all. It will only take one war and one EMP burst to prove that.
Just because Microsoft sucks right now in Internet stuff and is not that flashy like the cute AJAX startups (who are dying like flies), doesn't means too much, we need to see how the winds are blowing:
a. You can't build an Office with AJAX. AJAX is too hard to program, relative to the functionality you get out of it. Heh, I am sure I will get a lot of smiles for this. The keyword is "relative". Btw, I have been doing AJAX in 2001, and it sucked big time.
To build a WebOffice, you need something much more reliable, faster and powerful than the shitty JavaScript. A development environment with static compile time checking, better control of machine resources, faster. A FLASHy virtual machine for example.
Google Apps (Sheets and Docs) are nothing more than toys, and they are locked in pit. They cannot grow larger than they currently are in an incremental manner.
It is a pity Google did not snatch Macromedia, for lack of vision. Now Microsoft is building their own lightweight virtual machine, for exactly this purpose: deliver large scale apps to the web.
b. .NET binding to the OS (the binding of Windows GUI to .NET 3.0). That's the single most aggresive move I have ever seen from a company. It goes like this: we are a monopolist of the OS market. Should you want to develop for our OS (which you must), you MUST use our developments tools and proprietary languages, which do not work on any other OSes. The monopoly is self-reinforcing, with one more leg added. The plan of the MS new boss is far-fetched (they mentioned 10 years), but it is sound.
The seeds are in place and the wind is blowing Microsoft's way, just give them time to grow.
So, I will start to respect Google's strategy the moment they push for the control of their underlying platform, making that little virtual machine.
Regards, Rares
What has helped the market more than Apple or Linux is this: desktop applications have standardized and the conversion tools make even programs like excell (with macros and arrays) interchangable with other nock off products. Thanks goes to the unknowns that supply open source that is interchangeable with MS products. If this was not avaialble every business would be locked into one desktop and that would likely still be MS Office.
I totally agree that there's this very small, very insular part of the world that thinks it's dead, but that part of the world is apparently not working in large companies, or trading files with professionals in any profession other than design (e.g., try to find an Architect using Mac-based software -- they can't, because they couldn't trade files with each other or clients).
I'll believe MS is dead when they have, say, less than 70% of the world's computers running their operating system and when my corporate clients stop asking for files in Word format. Until then, they're just a monopoly that has massive amounts of power but that the cool kids aren't interested in.
It's like saying POTS telephones are dead -- they might not be interesting, but that's a big difference from being dead.
MS Office is clearly under serious attack now, and I'm sure the OS will follow in a few years unless MS takes a major tack in their business, which seems unlikely but is possible. If you are a top-notch programmer brimming with big ideas, do you want to work for MS? Probably not, and I think that is the biggest barrier they have to succeeding in the new web world. You can buy programming mercenaries with enough cash, but the genius paradigm-shifters will be hard to find over at MS.
Last time I checked, none of the online web two point ooh software can open big documents. These web-apps only match probably 20% of MS Office features and it's simply not enough these days when people are more tech-savvy than in the past.
every time I fire-up and use OpenOffice, I hear the 'cry' of another microsofty programmers` heart, breaking in two ... guess I fall in the second half.
Evolution:
-Mainframes as the computing platform (IBM)
--- PCs as the computing platform (Apple)
------- the OS as the computing platform (MS Windows) (Where Apple missed the boat by only offering their OS on proprietary hardware)
------------- the Internet as the computing platform (Google) (where MS will probably miss the boat)
1. It's free
2. It can read all Microsoft and open formats
3. It can export as PDF
4. It runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, ... (written in Java I believe)
5. It's open source
6. Various other features have been added which MS now adds to MS Office in order to catch up (like auto-completion).
Microsoft is now a nuisance, not a competitor. They can make business painful, but they aren't scary anymore.
They are dead in the sense that while they still keep their old monopoly, it's slowly crumbling away... Files in word format can be read on almost any plateform now (maybe not always perfectly but still good enough) and the file formats for texts or other things will change as people start using new software (web applications).
As a matter of fact, you can see the death of microsoft by the fact that it's not a problem to run another platform anymore (in 90% of the cases) and that it becomes more and more easier...
It's mostly because microsoft doesn't bring anything new to the table anymore... Before, they didn't really innovate but they often came with really good implementations of good ideas other people had (lotus 1-2-3 - excel, wordstar - word, netscape - internet explorer) and took the market. They don't seem to be able to do this anymore
FACT: Microsoft is in the company I would like to see die the most.
Overall I wouldnt say that the company is dead yet, but I agree that they are dying. I do agree that the concepts on which they were built have died - this is probably what the author of this article really means. The body is dead but rigor mortis has not yet set in.
Im not sure I would agree with this Web 2.0 business. To me the web is a very vacuous place - all sizzle and no steak. Its mainly a playground for the porn industry and identity thieves, and Microsoft wannabees desperately trying to convince people something great is about to happen there. So far nothing great has.
In many ways the web is like present day hollywood with its boom-vrash flash-bang movies. Full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing. All sight and sound but no plot and nothing for the intellect.
The web is a wild west arizona desert - full of snake oil salesmen - its just the bandwidth is higher.
CompUSA and BestBuy seem to be dead, ala Microsoft. They have a few devoted WinIdiots and WinMorons, but, most folks just shop on the Internet, now, for high tech. goodies, running upto 50X faster in GNU/Linux, on an old PC, so it all looks as great as Mac, at reduced investment, that recycles systems for another 10 years!
Anybody who knows a school kid, or, a geek, has heard of Linux, and probably even has at least one computer that runs it! Exception is School Boards in 10 remaining states who still support convicted felon Microsoft, desktop Windows, and the "trusted partner" protection racket, while Linux is faster, safer, runs on old equipment, and is FREE!
310 of the distros are at http://livecdlist.com
I think that's slightly off -- I think the folks who designed XMLHttpRequest fully understood its general utility. I think they're thrilled that lots of really interesting apps are being built on top of it. I think the problem was that the people writing apps at Microsoft didn't realize you could now use this to write compelling web-based apps.
This is the conclusion I come out with after I read the news about Microsoft in action again. If you read the news on the recent All Things Digital you will know what I mean.
I am not super fan of microsoft but I respect them as they are really working on new product to benefits people like you and me.
They have came out from the stiff competition of internet & pc world and go into new arena that again they become the leader now.
If you want to find out more about this, I have put up in my blog about the recent introduced of Surface Computer: http://www.interneton9.com/2007/06/microsoft-surface-computer-appeared-in-d-all-thing-digitals/
There is no point to discuss who afraid who here now. We should go on to discuss how this products can bring a lot ore convenience to us in our daily life.
Steven Wong
This is the conclusion I come out with after I read the news about Microsoft in action again. If you read the news on the recent All Things Digital you will know what I mean.
I am not super fan of microsoft but I respect them as they are really working on new product to benefits people like you and me.
They have came out from the stiff competition of internet & pc world and go into new arena that again they become the leader now.
If you want to find out more about this, I have put up in my blog about the recent introduced of Surface Computer: http://www.interneton9.com/2007/06/microsoft-surface-computer-appeared-in-d-all-thing-digitals/
There is no point to discuss who afraid who here now. We should go on to discuss how this products can bring a lot ore convenience to us in our daily life.
Steven Wong
We should pay some credence to what Microsoft has done to computing. I think they have built industry leading applications and provided (in some cases) some vision for development. Hands down they once owned computing.
Certainly the business model allowed them to become very rich and powerful. Knowing what we know now - maybe we shouldn't have let it happen.
Does your article simply state, the industry has changed? Why is Google more important now than Microsoft?
Collaborative documents and its respective monetization - who are the leaders? Monetization and sustainability seem to me to be king.
What is important about your article? Doesn't Microsoft continue to be profitable, sustainable, and offer value to its customers? Is there something important about a loss of their lock (except the obvious)? Is there a social statement there?
How does this translate to me as a user, a developer, a business person?
More seriously, I mostly do business right now with small businesses (2-8 people), and some stupidly high proportion of these businesses run totally on Windows. When they go to buy the computer(s) they need, it never even occurs to them that there is any choice about whether to buy Windows, because Windows is just what programs run in. This kind of customer laughs ruefully along with the Apple commercials they see on TV, but I don't think it ever crosses their mind that they could actually buy a Mac for their business, much less a Linux box.
Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, Outlook, and Exchange are the core software apps of 90+% of small businesses.
I'm not saying that I worry about them for my own projects, or that you should for yours. :)
You forgot the CPU-sucking antivirus apps they need to run that still can't guarantee that the business won't be brought to a standstill by a worm.
In any case, a couple days ago, I was on the john, reading Hackers and Painters, and there's a chapter on "What you can't say" dealing with controversial thoughts. Apparently, this is one of them. pg's advice in the end of the article was not to say anything at all, so you don't have to deal with bickering with others, and go about your merry way.
But then again, I don't see pg here in the trenches. In fact, most of us have wasted our time (some more than others) posting 200+ posts here, instead of working on our startups.
1) I think you underestimate the importance of Firefox in Microsoft's decline in importance. It is Firefox that makes sure that all those Web-based apps aren't held hostage to Microsoft's implementation of web standards.
2) Whilst its all about the web it isn't all about the browser. Ajax-y web apps show the potential for ignoring platform specific APIs (such as Win32)--especially when you don't try to mimic platform specific behaviour (the big problem with Swing-based apps: stop pretending to be a native desktop app! Rejoice in being a x-platform web app!). But ajax inside Firefox/Safari isn't going to be enough for me to abandon all of my 'rich' Mac OS X apps: if you want me to put all of my brain in your web-based wiki or PIM, give the same 'richness' and sophistication of design that I can get with VoodooPad, DevonThink, and Curio.
And no mention of how the current EC drubbing has emboldened competitors to take the first tentative steps back out into the sunshine in decades?
Apart from this strange omission, I agree with the sentiment of this essay.
I wish I had kept the transcript of the argument I had with a Microsoft employee in one of their forums about 6 years ago.
At the end of it, he said something like, "well, good luck storming the fortress. The walls are pretty high and our war chest is huge!".
To which I replied with something like, "I am sure that's just the sort of thing the captain of the Titanic was thinking right up to the part where that iceberg ripped his boat apart like a piece of wet tissue".
I then went on to mention that bigger companies had fallen than Microsoft (can't recall the timing of Exxon, or whatever it was called).
Based on your assumptions, if they are indeed dead or headed inexorably in that direction, then why aren't we all using thin clients connected to superfast pipes running ajaxified code? Perhaps, it doesn't always work that well?
I guess all these web2.0 companies, y-combinator included, didn't use powerpoint for their deck? Or the execs don't run windows mobile 5.0 on their smartphone?
You make a lot of valid points but you omit a lot in the analysis and you get kinda religous about it all.
When a team declares victory just by taking the lead... you know that team is scared.
Could it be stagnant? Yeah; I suppose. Maybe it is stagnant. Or maybe you're just so caught up in your "hip" counter-culture $2,000 iMac lifestyle that you are blinded to the plain facts. The facts, like, that 99% of businesses and developers EXCLUSIVELY use Windows. And 99% of all homes. And 90% of all students. I don't understand how any company with around 90% of the entire marketshare could be considered dead.
You made some good points but ultimately this whole "essay," is just off-base hogwash for Apple fanboys.
I just wish Flash would work better on Linux instead of worse.
And if I ever buy another prebuilt computer, it probably will be a Mac, since Linux doesn't get the same recognition or money for its similar market share.
The reason why Google rocks is that its not a monopoly. It makes chunkloads of money and then some more. But it does not have a 96% market share of search or maps or video or any other service. And its the same reason why Yahoo or Amazon or Ebay rock. They are leaders and profitable and everything that 90s-MS was, but they aren't monopolies.
My comment is from the point of view of a consumer, not a competitor... so this isn't really a reply to the original post.
A generation later "They're in a different world." clearly applies to M$ the way it did to IBM in 1982, though IBM's shadow was still large enough to inspire Apple's 1984 commercial.
You need look no further than any old web stats program to see who is online. (A quick look in Omniture at the stats for our newspaper web site shows that 74.4% of the operating systems are running Windows XP. Only 5.2% are using Macs. And just 3.9% are using other operating systems, i.e. Linux.) Or, for the less tech savvy, check the software shelves and see just how many programs support Macs.
It's really too bad. Your essay is otherwise very well written. It's just not founded in fact.
Which is another dying industry, in case you hadn't noticed.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8HFM6GOB&show_article=1
http://www.journalism.org/node/797
I work at an R1 research institution. When I attend talks in EE and CS (i.e., the ones attended by the guys doing research for tomorrow's technology), I see essentially nothing but Linux and Mac notebooks. 3-4 years ago it was about 50-50 Linux and Windows, rarely a Mac.
I don't think Graham is disputing that there are a lot of Windows machines out there (in fact, I seem to remember the article explicitly acknowledging this). He's talking about tomorrow, not today.
I'll bet if someone had visited your newspaper 25 years ago they'd have seen CP/M or Wang systems.
We should thank them in a way, because rather than having to compete against a mob of dinosaurs, MS has killed the others off for us - Novell for example. Thanks Bill.
I disagree with the end of desktops however. I'd prefer to be a geek at home, not show geekery everywhere I go. I don't like how much time people (including myself) spend on computers and its sad that they bring their laptops with them everywhere they go. A PDA makes more sense. I know two people in my class who have laptops. Everytime I see them open the laptops the battery is dead and they look for an outlet to plugin. They also use the laptops while in class and distract people with windows startup music and MSN messenger beeps. This is a recent addition to cell phones going off in class.
Google seems destined to become the world's most valuable corporation[1]. Who wants to be Pepsi?
To compete with Google, copy Google's game plan. Focus on search. Evolve to AI.[2] (An AI is something that can give me a useful answer to my question.) Organize the world's information. Everything else Google does is cover fire.[3]
What I'm really asking is, why can't I name a single pure play search company other than Google?
[1] Besides oil.
[2] http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dyson05/dyson05_index.html
[3] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html
As a developer, working in the open source, 5 billion different products in various stages of non-existant support and working in a single consistent framework with fabulous support, it isn't a difficult decision which way to go... Unless you are one of those "software tools should be free" kind of people who doesn't mind not getting paid either.
As a born-and-raised Mac user, I still think web apps suck, and for that matter, most Mac apps suck. But the few gems out there are phenomenal (or at least, approach the standard I hold). I wish more apps worked as well.
Microsoft is not a technology inventor; it notices a growing market and comes in late. This worked in the past because its operating system and office systems lived on virtually every desk top and because it could undercut competitor prices.
Now they are facing a competitor that is also on every desktop and offers its products for free. Hard to undercut that. Even worse, this competitor is very inventive and is a comparable size.
"Take away their oxygen" is the phrase Bill Gates once described as the way of handling competitors. Whose oxygen is going to be taken away this time?
If any of you knew anything about the software business, you would know that almost all the drive for making your product a great product is so M$oft will buy you out. Again for some silly reason a lot of the haters believe that all companies other than M$Soft are fair, reasonable and above board and that sure ain't true. Name me one company that M$oft took over than didn't make the owner a millionaire.
Lets get real and realize that consumer's opinion is not worth zippo to all these companies.
PS! ajaxwidgets.com
.t
I love "essays" where someone has experience from the last few years and says stupid things like this. "I'm surprised" when I see people using laptops their companies buy...and they run windows? That's just naive and foolish to say. Yes, Apple is cool, but that's like me saying I'm surprised when I DON'T see a laptop running Linux. Hey, I go to little conferences too, and everyone is using a Linux laptop. See how dumb it sounds? Now think that Linux and Mac have close to the same market share.
As much as I am frustrated with having to use XP (My Autodesk BIM cad system only runs on it), I wouldn't underestimate MS's ability to bounce back from bad directions/decisions like they have in the past.
If Gates radically changes his vision and business model to the new web world and gets Balmer to agree, they could dominate again. But can a company that has written extensively buggy software in the least lean way transform at this late date?
If it were anyone else other than Gates at the top of the company, I would say no. But does Gates have the energy this late in his career to make such a dramatic change in his business? Maybe not.
An interesting note is that Autodesk started out with Autocad, which they coded in lisp (eventually transformed into autolisp.) They took the MS model to software development and proceeded to make bigger and more complex versions with increasing quantities of bugs to the extent that multiple crashes per day were the norm. But they owned 80% of the world cad market, they became the 2nd largest software company in the world.
Revit was developed by a small company with an incredibly sound software architecture with a database at the core(without the massive bandaids that had piled up in Autocad and are still there today.) and developed a devoted cult following. Autodesk fought back with "Architectural Desktop", which I bought (before I knew about Revit). Their version: Cut a section through a building, wait 30 minutes. Revit, Cut a section through a building - instantly. Autodesk got very scared, then bought Revit. They saw the writing on the wall and undersood that Revit would be completely replacing Autocad in the next few years, which it is doing now.
So if MS can buy Google, they'll be all set :)
My post here : http://www.vinnylingham.com/2007/02/top-20-reasons-why-web-apps-are-superior-to-desktop-apps.html
I totally agree with Paul in almost everything, however I don't believe buying up all the web 2.0 companies would work. Microsoft has to actually concede that web apps are the future - they still don't believe that it is!
"There can only be one big man in town, and they're clearly it."
I love reading the "Microsoft is dead" stories - there has been about 1 a year for the last 10 years or so.
I remember when Netscape was going to rule the world - or AOL.
I even recall that people seriously thought that a Palm Pilot would slay the giant.
Oh how we laughed!
And just because your tiny geek-chic niche all uses Macs doesn't mean that everyone does.
Nor does using a Mac make you A) cooler B) smarter C) more attractive to the opposite sex D) more creative or E) qualified to make sweeping generalizations about industries and business you apparently know little about.
Other than that, very interesting.
Linux thrives and it's the younger generation of techies that have carried on this battle in an unstoppable fashion. Curiousity + frustration + dogged determinism has led to a people powered movement that could not be crushed by money, FUD or other corporate methods. Democracy and anarchism is the antidote to corporatism and fascism.
I think their only real succcess outside of Search is mapping but even there they're trailing Microsoft (local.live.com) in innovation. Check out the 45 degree angle photos on local.live.com if you don't believe me.
Lately, MS has been coming up with nothing but Bloatware. To be productive these days, all I need is a Live CD of Linux Puppy and connect to the net to access all the online applications I need for work.... I store all my files online and access them from anywhere in the world....
Once I am on the net, it matters little if I use OSX, Windows or Linux. It is only a matter of time before Web based applications will be as good as desktop applications....
Also I have tried out a mac and I didn't like it as much as I like my windows pc. Manily for the price and the fact that you can't upgrade it yourself.
You may know a lot about computers, but your math sucks. Try factoring in the third half of your readers [those of us who read your words and think, "forget the Lone Ranger. When I grow up I'm marrying THIS guy"]!
http://www.techweb.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189500876&cid=RSSfeed_TechWeb
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2005/02/66460
Both examples do not comprehensively define MS, or future of core MS strategies, or of the future of MS including search and player strategies
That "appendage" is usually the head itself. Microsoft often acquires a good thing (many times a catchup move) but this thing only stays good for a short time. When integration is complete, it's a single bumbling Microsoft entity once again.
1) xbox (though, at this point it has not really been adsorbed back in yet) 2) IE 3) MS Office 4) MS Windows 5) MS-DOS 6) Hotmail
That actually changed when I got a job developing an application with IronPython (an open-source implementation of Python for .NET - funded by Microsoft).
Now I actually use .NET, and I have to admit that it isn't bad. Generally a sane API, and C# is nicer than Java.
Still, when I develop my own projects I use cPython, and Microsoft is now 'slightly; relevant whereas for the last few years they have seemed completely irrelevant.
If enough companies train enough people then the "we use microsoft because everyone knows it" excuse will be out the window.
Full text here:
http://not-your-cup-of-chai.blogspot.com/2007/03/distributed-vs-centralized-entities.html
Microsoft realized it would die if they didn't react with their environment. They know they where gonna get hit in their software department, so... While people were concerned with Microsoft and its monopoly in the OS market, they realized they needed to expand and eventually transform.
People, may I say they own the gaming industry, and Nintendo. But according to reg stats whichever gaming system comes out firsts wins the market. Hello Xbox360 ~ Microsoft's new empire.
Windows is dead. That is true.
Btw.: I don't think that desktop apps are really dead. System file assets/album/playlist integration (iLife suite) or the comfort of a desktop UI (e.g. better shortcut integration - which pro doesn't work with time-saving Photoshop shortcuts) will be hard to mimick in an AJAX, browser-based setting.
http://stephesblog.blogs.com/my_weblog/2005/11/msft_will_not_b.html OpenOffice on /Windows/ actually has the ability to perturb the revenue stream in interesting ways.
http://stephesblog.blogs.com/my_weblog/2005/11/i_started_the_w.html Why they can't just spend their way out of the hole, and why they can't actually motivate the troops under Ozzie.
Some of your arguments just don't hold water, at one point you're arguing the desktop is dead but then oh one of the reasons MS is in trouble is Apple's desktop?
Web based applications may be on the rise but there are plenty of problems with them too, disconnected operation, lack of backups etc. being some of them.
The platform of the future is the phone - you've only got to look at how it's used to fuel innovation in some of the third world countries.
Now, MS might be loosing because slowly the rules of the game are changing. IBM - Mainframe, MS - Desktop. Get it. Cellphone/mobile - ???
Maybe it's still early but we may have to watch out who will be the dangerous player on mobile. That is if it becomes the device for - computing, entertainment, and communication.
I don't think Apple would have allowed Steve such free reign as they did after his return, had he never left. Conversely, I don't think Steve had the contacts to do what was done with OS X, had he never met Avie and created NeXT.
That's just my $0.02, though. :-)
The clearest proof of their death is their failure to launch an improved operating system. Vista was a big failure and I think they are starting to realize it. I think this particular piece of software is going to kill them for good. (that being 6ft under) Though this process could take some time it has started and it's not going to stop.
Bye Bye Microsoft. Hope not to see any lookalikes any time soon.
Victor
And microsoft will still probably come out with new useful and popular products, but they won't be the sort that cause shockwaves throughout the whole industry (well maybe the Game Industry but that wasn't the point).
Wake up and shake off the shackles of corporate greed! Gnu/Linux processes upto 50X faster, runs on any platform, DEC Alpha to Sparc. Why else is Microsoft using 'Nix in front of all servers, on all Redmond networks, for all routers (Aruba leased routers are on all MS nets), and etc.?
Learn the new revenue streams, or go bankrupt with them.
Unreliable AJAX apps under IE would discourage users from using web apps. Most users are generally clueless and will not try to switch to another browser.
Microsoft could also undermine the business model of many web services by providing free advertising. The ads could even appear on users' desktops so improving their search engine may not even be necessary.
For example, what incentive would it have to support an offline mode for AJAX apps?
Their incentive is to maintain their market share. IE7 is their attempt to get their ass in gear for precisely that reason. The market's not going to stick around and wait for IE and the web will progress whether MSFT wants it to or not.
http://java.sys-con.com/read/37121.htm
So yes, they could make life difficult for AJAX developers.
Microsoft tried to kill XForms. The workaround of AJAX made Microsoft to open their eyes 10-12 months ago...
That sort of trick used to work, once, when we all got our software off CDs on the cover of magazines. Firefox is a small download now. They won't try it twice.
microsoft can be getting hit by web apps and competing desktops simultaneously...no contradiction there. He just chose to choose one as a bigger factor than the other, that's all.
In those days, you eithr used a frameset with a hidden frame to get the update stuff from the server and put it into the browser via DOM access. Or, to stay with MS, you could use a hidden IFRAME.
Really no rocket science... so, the killer apps these days are small, simple and FAST desktop apps (whatever desktop people use). We will see...
AJAX is better than the last generation of web-apps, but the browser still basically sucks as a platform. Latency is a bitch. :-)
I feel there's money (or fame, failing that) to be made in a competitor to or addition to foxmarks that allows feeds of bookmarks to be easily subscribed to, so I could distribute a bunch of links in structured format to a development team, say, right in their web browser, that they could all collaborate on. Would take very little effort, and at least I myself could see immediate benefit.
There are a couple and they only suck a bit, but they don't compare to the desktop ones.
I don't use a browser based text editor when I want to make a quick note. Actually a couple of my friends do with google docs - but not too many.
For the apps I use everyday, the browser sucks. It's not just latency, although this is a big contributor to why web apps feel sucky and clunky, but the browser just isn't a very good platform for rich applciations.
The google integration between their applications is very good, and getting better, but it isn't enough to make me forget that the interface sucks...
The browser is a fantastic platform. You never have to install web apps. You never have to patch web apps. And you are automatically connected through the client-server paragidm that proved to be so wonderful before desktops ever came about.
Remember, dumb terminals were around long before PCs.
Fantastic for the developer maybe - not so for the user.
"Remember, dumb terminals were around long before PCs."
Right. How was that for the user ?
Instead, people of worth, let's help pushing stuff like this: http://www.cs.stevens.edu/~dlong/software/kamen/index.php (Note that I'm not the author, just heard of it recently.)
And, btw, I'm pretty much in the younger half of the population(16), and I'd much rather work at Microsoft which allows you to blog and conducts events in countries outside the US than at Google where you aren't even allowed to say what the dominant color in the data center is...
P.S. You rock, but this one made me LMAO. Tell me it was a late April Fool's joke.
It seems to me that the word dead really sends people off the edge.
IBM is doing better than they were when they made computers. To give them credit, Microsoft could be in the transitional phase. I mean, can you honestly say that you've never played 20 straight hours of Halo on an XBox? I know I can't.
Call me optimistic or just crazy, but I still believe that Microsoft is a competitor in technological innovation. I think Google will suffer from the same condition that plagued Microsoft during 2001-2005 (massive egos). This will help other companies (including Microsoft) get their footing and potentially launch a comeback (as Apple did).
It seems easy to denounce Microsoft as an evil corporation. It's harder to recognize that they have battles of their own. Remember those antitrust cases? Microsoft was given grief for packaging IE into Windows (let's see, who else packages a wad of their own software into their operating system? hmmmmm.....). Do a search for torrents and you can find the latest Windows (or any windows version). Did geeks believe that stealing someone's hard work was cool? Hell yes. Microsoft is the paranoid old man that it is because we helped put it there while we give graces and laud Google and Apple.
I use a Thinkpad running Windows XP (and Ubuntu).
To address your Apple computer usage by geeks: it's the same problem with most amateur photographers, they still think fancy toys are vital in making a photograph (ie having Mac OSX in no way improves your abilities as a designer).
Like many others have said: stick around and let's see what happens.
Meanwhile, anyone up for a game of ultimate frisbee?
I think another reason is that younger people are more computer literate and more open to new OS's and software. Mom and Dad were intimidated by computers and just wanted the simplest, most common software (microsoft/IBM), which they'd learned to use at work.
-Tai
Um, no.
I care to have fast access (I am a network administrator at a hospital so it'd be useful). But I cannot have it. Therefore your comment does not reflect reality.
I'm sure that's true in the city where you live, but come to Dalton, NH and tell me again how I'm supposed to get high speed access. DSL? Nope. Cable? Ha! Satellite? Not on my wooded hillside. Magic internet fairies? Oh, that must be what you're talking about!
PooPsTech Sr. Software Eng.
What some of the (ok, us) "older" folks don't realize is that the younger generation will bring their technology to work with them and it will eat away at the corporate desktop from within despite all the "we need a big vendor to cover our asses when the Fed regulators come a knockin'" attitudes that prevail in that world. And IBM is still there to beat them down from above.
Think of it as a layer of skin tissue. When the a layer of skin tissue is replaced by the body, it doesn't just disappear overnight. Rather, it starts cracking and peeling first, then over time, it is gradually replaced by a new fresh layer from underneath.
MS is currently peeling...
"Thanks to OSX, Apple has come back from the dead in a way that is extremely rare technology."
I think that should be "extremely rare IN technology."
Is there even one synapse in your whole head firing? You've got to be cold stupid to think they're dead.
Each company is extremely successful, and in no danger of going away anytime soon.
Paul saying that he's surprised to see someone running Windows is proof that this is a very big planet, and there's lots of room for all kinds of love.
got vista at closing comp usa 20% off awhile back... its linux with windows name (protected mode) works fine!
MS is now to busy with the MS FOUNDATION and that BURKSHIRE guy from OMAHA to care about WINDOWS or computers. I'll bet VISTA is the end of it!
THEY HAVE OTHER FISH TO FRY......
http://hitesh-jasani.blogspot.com/2007/04/web-server-stats.html
http://www.osxautomation.com/2006/12/10/the-microsoft-bubble-in-2006/
you seem to be back-pedaling with this cliff-notes post. so you are going to be the first to "call it"... call what exactly? that seems to be your cliff notes discussion... it required several paragraphs to define what you mean. nobody is going to remember what you exactly called.
you say the following... "When I said that Microsoft was dead, I meant they had, like IBM before them, passed across into this underworld."
so you are basically saying now that ibm is dead... in which you define it as "people at the leading edge of the software business no longer have to think about them."
i guess many would disagree with you on what "leading edge" or relevance in software is about. if you think these web2.0 companies, then perhaps, then many will disagree with you whether there's much new tech coming out of these web 2.0 companies.
By hanging out with a bunch of graduates from top schools that work at your startups you've basically stuck your head in the sand. These people are not your average Americans. Your Average American is using his computer for things that your circle of friends have no interest in.
Seriously, get out of the valley for a few months and go visit people, regular people, around America. Go see what kids are doing in PC "bhangs" in Asia.
"Everyone uses macs" ... this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
And do you think Snipshot and Jumpcut type programs are ever going to be fast enough and feature rich enough for people that care about their media? Snipshot might be ok for a quick brightness adjustment or a resize, but have you seen what kids are using photoshop for today? Go visit a popular online forum like Something Awful, Fark, or Genmay -- look at the Photoshop Phriday type activities the kids are having fun with. Tell me that you can do that stuff with Snipshot.
Honestly, you old school Valley guys are just as bad as anyone from Redmond. You've got your own blinders and have as little clue as anyone else about what people actually want to do with their technology. Everyone embraces trends like Google, Facebook etc. after the fact, as though those things were carefully thought out strategies when really there are a thousands of things being tried and some are bound to succeed because people want to do _something_ online.
The internet is evolving organically and though you smarty pants would like to think that a bunch of clever people are making clever choices to provide the market with what it wants, its more like putting capabilities out there seeing what will stick. People love to paint this fiction about succesful start ups, as though they were smarter than others in choosing the right "niche". Its all a load of horseshit -- nobody, least of all the founders, has any idea what the market is going to take to.
So you can all sit in a circle jerk dumping on Microsoft, as though their random-walk through feature scape is something different than what you guys do, but the fact of the matter is that you are all the same. They use their own money to fund a ton of crap, most of which is nonsense, and you use other people's money to fund a ton of crap, most of which is nonsense.
What's sad is that now they've fallen below everyone's radar. Which makes it that much easier to get away with shit like this.
However, it is obvious that hardware vendors still fear Microsoft. The day that they stop fearing Microsoft is the day that just about every PC will have the option of either Windows or Linux.
Last time a company tried something like this was IBM in the mid-90's and Microsoft made quite an example of them by increasing their annual Windows licensing charge by $200 million.
It isn't hard to see. Microsoft may not be dead, but they have definitely dropped the soap.
http://republicofinternets.com/2007/03/17/is-microsoft-done/
http://pieceofpaper.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/all_macs_and_all_writing.jpg I think Im picking a pimple on my cheek
${applause}
This is a beautiful simile, one I will repeat to others. Also (I'm 32) this feels like old news but hearing it put so succinctly by you, well, it puts a big ol grin on my face. =D
Thanks, Paul -- and keep it up!
What OSX and Linux both present is a vision, an ideal of how things should be. That ultimately is what is absent in Redmond.
RT
Well.......... 1. I don't trust the web providers server security. 2. I don't trust the network security on the Internet. 3. I don't trust that the Feds - they can obtain my "web-based" stuff through subpoenas or other means.
....so I won't be usimg web-based applications for anything personal any time soon!
Sean
These must be some strange new kind of human beings. Me, I trust no one.
It was a great little piece Paul.
http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2007/04/08/microsoft-is-dead/
People are no longer afraid of MS because technology has now grown into areas (e.g. web) where they can work without competing with MS.
I'm confounded by the number of customers I run into who are convinced they either need a new Windows Vista computer, or worse, that they need to install Windows Vista on their old computer.
Joel Spolsky came to a similar conclusion back in 2004: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html
I think that is more true than ever, When your primary computer access is via a browser, the OS (and standalone applications on top) does not matter any more.
Ask yourself this : Can a grandma install Debian? Is a grandma interested in setting herself apart from the masses with a trendy powerbook? No and No. A grandma only wants something that works well. Like 99.999% of the world's population.
People want what is easy and intuitive. Geeks, hackers and trendy insecure people revel in the obscure and fashionable (Linux and Macs).
BILLIONS of copies of Mac OS X interconnecting?
- iPhones, iPods/tablets(soon), notebooks, desktops, media nodes, wearables (see shuffle jewelry to come).
And yes, something else will displace the Apple universe.
Inside the bubble - insider joy. outside the bubble - outsider again.
But, Google is my friend. I tell evey one that. Power beyond belief.
Meanwhile, when will MAC die?
I believe in opensource, and all the goodness there.
It is a global village. The MAC is too expensive hardware-wise, and well we don't call it M$ for nothing.
Adler Phoenix, Arizona
Microsoft dead? Not yet. If they were dead, NOBODY in their right mind would be buying Vista - but just try buying a new PC without Vista... Lame maybe, big and increasingly incompetent, clearly - but certainly not dead.
Dave Whittle - Former IBM OS/2 Evangelist
It's a value proposition that panders first to management's Fear Uncertainty and Doubt and second to actual results.
nobody is afraid of them accept their customers but then they are far too strong for any other os
Yakov Fain
As far as I see around (in India) we hardly see any Mac PC's or laptops here...
Long live Apple! Gimme an iPhone now!
Edit: looks fixed now.
I laughed out loud when I read this because, as a 17 year old, it was exactly what I was thinking when I saw the essay's title.
Google owns search but they are losing focus, just like MSFT. Remember that if it weren't for MSFT, Apple wouldn't have taken the PC market too far .... this is just the beginning of the IT revolution!
IBM - MSFT - GOOGLE - ADOBE - WHO'S NEXT?
They are all gonna slow down at some point.... I am not afraid of Google... Even if a company is a mammoth, it HAS its limitations!!!
And as for programming, whenever I'm working in Visual Studio, I feel like I'm working in Notepad. Honestly, if you take the time to learn the keybindings for vi or emacs (I won't say which, I use both :-), you will find that a much more lightweight program can manage projects just as well, and you can code many times faster.
Honestly, it's hard to get away from what you're used to, but immerse yourself in a non-Microsoft environment for a few months (I've been using Unix heavily for less than a year), and you'll realize that Microsoft is the one with the bad interfaces. For years they have been catering to the lowest common denominator. The people who want true control over what they are doing use or write an open source program.
"...How about the ability to install any of 20,000 programs from a convenient package/portage/rpm directory for free in seconds?..."
Well, I tell you, it's just not that simple. Linux distributions may or may not work. Just yesterday (Friday) I installed Ubuntu Drake (you know, the STABLE version) only to find it boots to ... a command line. No graphical desktop. Command 'startx' unrecognized. Try to install xserver-xorg. It appears to succeed but startx complains about font 'fixed' not found. I Google some forums, they say font directories have moved, but by golly I can't find the new directories the forums mention. I'm not alone, but no further advice is to be found. Just for fun I try to install ubuntu-desktop in the early afternoon only to find the installation grinding on for a couple hours then dying with my network partner disconnecting the logical link. The better part of a day wasted trying what should be a simple installation. Right.
If you find Linux installs fine and upgrades painlessly, then I'm happy for you. But don't claim Linux makes MY life any easier. In return, I won't demand support from providers of free software.
Maybe MS has the bad interfaces, but they work where others fail. You've got to give them some credit for that. Of course, this can all change with Vista and maybe even XP eventually. And eventually, when XP is bloated with DRM, maybe even Ubuntu will boot my system to a graphical desktop.
As for Ubuntu, I personally have not been very happy with it. I have had much better luck using Gentoo, being quite satisfied with the software management system (called portage), and their approach of compiling everything. My system is very stable and fast, without too much effort.
I will admit that there are some problems trying to work with closed-source software like the Java browser plug-in and Flash, but there are generally step-by-step how-tos out there that say exactly how to get it working. 64-bit is still a bit rough in a few places. I predict that within a year or two, however, many of these issues will be ironed out and everything will be smooth.
Of course, if you're trying to install beta software, you should still expect some difficulty.
Why kill Microsoft if all you care for is the browser? Install Firefox, dont upgrade to Vista or later...Just have one desktop icon and start menu program...Firefox.
Microsoft is not dead till this can be viable.
Vijay Dekoh
Then again, etiquette doesn't help entrepreneurs much.
And I dunno about news.YC, but Reddit at least doesn't work that way. I've written pieces that were picked up on Reddit and posted by other people. I found it rather flattering; it meant other folks thought it was interesting enough to post without my intervention.
The main difference between us and you is that you feel it necessary to throw stones at us (or in this case verbal diarrhea) every so often and we are happy to let you live in your world, and respect you for it, while we happily go about our business shaking our heads at how absolutely uninformed you are about our world.
You are part of the problem not part of the solution.
See you in a couple of years when you pop your head out of your hole and shit all over us again.
I mean, either the definition of "hacker" has expanded quite liberally, or we should start seeing a slew of awesome apps start rolling out any minute now...
I didn't intend my comment to mean that Windows doesn't have legitimate hackers, I was just saying that it doesn't support them nearly as well as others do, with its closed API and licensed software-building tools. I was also poking fun at the "MILLIONS of hackers" comment, because in my opinion, there aren't millions of hackers in the entire world. I don't believe that hacker simply means "programmer", but rather, something a bit more. I certainly wouldn't consider myself to be one yet, even though I am quite confident in my programming skills.
So I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that there aren't Windows hackers, just that I seriously doubt that there are millions of them.
About the support for the hackers... hm... it probably depends on the definition of 'hacker', but there's MSDN, a HUGE resource for the developers on the Windows platforms, with references for all products, languages and tools, examples, knowledge base etc.
Speaking of installation, I guess it's a matter of preference. Personally, I prefer to download stuff that I need, burn the 'developer tools dvd', and install from there. apt, urpmi and similar tools are nice and I quite like their elegance and simplicity, but they are great when you have enough bandwidth and don't have to pay for the extra traffic, and not so nice if you have 3-4 machines to install or update.
And, finally, yes... hackers are few and far between, developers are a bit more common, and the rest are coders.
You are so correct in your essay. I ditto you. I would say that, the time has come where "USERs" do not want standalone, unstructured or single sing on applications. I say that, its time for eWorking Facilities.
Not to advert, if I could suggest is, please have a look at www.WorkACE.com. Its a smart eBusiness solution, with built in features of Intranet, Extranet, Groupware, Knowledge Management, Business Ecosystem Management, Project/Process Management, Supply Chain Management, Webmail, IM/Chat, Work Flow Management and eSupport, all compiled into a comprehensive and cognitive eWorking facility.
Rgds, Sushant Madhab www.qxsystems.com
But the day which I finally don't use Windows while I'm work is going to be several years later from now.
-john longawa
I am a fantastic believer in history telling us about the future. And in this case, history says, Microsoft will always be key to a desktop centric world. And desktop centricity is cyclical. For now Web 2.0 seems to have the baton, but as we nove into a very rich multi-media world we will become constrained by the broadband pipes. This will push apps, content, and everything else back to the user device, be it a Windows PC or a Windows Pocket PC. Apple stole the march with the single purpose iPod (don't pretend video or anything else on the iPod is a killer App), but Microsoft still own the multi-purpose device.
DRM has been the Achilles Heel of Microsoft. As they have come back from many Anti-Trust cases they attempted to sidestep more brouhaha in the world of Digital Media, and have attempted to play fair (don't get me wrong I know they usually do not play fair). This has allowed Apple to gain the upperhand in Music Devices. But, as Apple are now breaking the mold on this to allow DRM-free sales from EMI, they in turn will have just given Microsoft the opening it will need to reinforce its position. It wont be success through intent, as I believe that the Zune player will fail. But a new competitive ecosystem of devices will lead everything back to the desktop as the hub.
No matter what, no-one is going to trust their personal memories, be it music, video or photo's entirely to the Web. They will share it there, but not leave it there.
Microsoft is back where they were when Netscape first launched, they are the slow lumbering laggard.
But as history shows us, they turned themselves around, and owned (however briefly) the mindset of everyone who had money to spend (and this is not typically your 15-year old Web 2.0 consumer with no money), it was the corporates, with their large cheque books.
Google are moving more and more to follow the Microsoft lead. Microsoft is far from dead, but like all parents who have given life to others (such as Google, albeit through removed ways), they from time to time will be less involved in their Children's lives. But, they will always retain some criticality in their lives. MS will never really die in our lifetimes. They just move from being the soul point of attention.
Good luck to your startups, but imagining them operating in a world where they do not know and respect the importance of Microsoft, and try to emulate or utilise them in their goals, seems like a recipe for failure to me.
"And, in this case, history says, IBM will always be key to a central computing-centric world....For now minicomputers seem to have the baton, but as we move into a very rich data environment....No matter what, no-one is going to trust their corporate data entirely to desktop computers. They will share it there, but not leave it there." and so forth.
This would have seemed very plausible thirty years ago, when IBM was dominant. And, indeed, nobody pushed IBM out of the dinosaur pens. There are still IBM mainframes out there, and they don't have much competition in the mainframe business. Of course, IBM wasn't pushing anything as relatively bad as Vista in those days.
Microsoft isn't going to die because of being pushed off the desktop, unless they do it themselves with increasingly unusable operating systems. They will cease to be relevant as applications become less tied to the underlying desktop OS, much as IBM ceased to be relevant as data became less tied to the central mainframe.
Having used gmail since March 28, 05, gcal since it came out, and other web software as appropriate for a while, I'm a big believer in software-as-a-service because I hate the idea of having desktop software on one computer and not the other. I also own both, an Apple PowerBook and a Dell laptop. I find Windows a lot more keyboard friendly, since I like to fly around with both shortcut keys and the Mac just can't keep up with me. On the other hand, I love Mac's Zen-like environment and the rock solid BSD underneath it -- Windows can seem pretty cheesy with all its pop-up baloons and MS-DOS prompt. However, given the apps and hardware available for Windows, I still prefer Windows because I'm a developer and business guy. I also disagree that Windows is for grandmas. I mean, Paul, which world do you live in? Just because a niche of designers, developers and a few affluent folks use Apple, doesn't mean EVERYONE is using Macs. Your bias clearly shows through here.
I personally am not biased to any particular hardware/OS because I use them all (even Ubuntu/Linux for servers). Having worked with 5 flavors of Unix since 1991, I feel equally comfortable with the nix world, Windows and Mac OS.
In the end, Apple is a cult -- it always has been. Apple isn't any better of a company than Microsoft and neither is Google. I've always had a love-hate relationship with Microsoft. I hate how they try to break stuff (e.g. Java, JavaScript) but I absolutely don't mind using MS Office to get stuff done. And, the fact that I almost entirely use open source for my development/deployment and not feel hampered on Windows combined with the fact that most of my personal information management is done using gmail/gcal, I can use Microsoft to get the best of all world: i.e. MS Office, web 2.0 apps through Firefox, anything open source (e.g. eclipse, rails, mysql), etc., etc. I strongly believe OS will eventually become less relevant for desktops, whether it is Microsoft, Mac, or Linux.
In the end, consumers have personal preferences and corporation want to make money. That's as simple as it gets.
On June 2, 2006 (thanks to gmail's quick search engine for locating the email/date), I sent an email to a bunch of folks pointing them to Paul's "How to start a startup" article (http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html) because I absolutely loved it! On this article, I have to agree with the previous commenter that "Paul Graham is the Ann Coulter of the Web 2.0 world." :-(
I run Office 2007 in Parallel's virtual machine software, since I have necessary add-ins, and reboot the machine to Windows when needed for a project.
Since the release of Tiger, I have been performing many conversions from Windows to Mac. There are also large corporations like Mastercard, which are mainstream Mac.
this article was well just a bunch of FUD
Dead in the sense that I won't read his ever increasing bsht anymore.
--larsw
"We didn't invite Microsoft and they didn't bother contacting us" LOL, because they don't give a shit about you =)
Microsoft FTW.
-monish
1. Data formats: The Operating System is becoming less important. The focus should continue to be toward standards. Proprietary Data formats, such as DOC are slowly dying. This is absolutely one of the keys (as evidenced by MS's reaction to Massachusetts when they attempted to pass legislation requiring the use of Standards on their documents).
MS has spent nearly their entire dev cycle ensuring "vendor lock in". This is beginning to end. You mentioned JavaScript as an attempt to compromise popular 3rd party solutions. Further research will turn up an unbelievable number of attempts at this (some successful others just a joke and a waste of the customer's time).
The message to ALL users is this: Keep your data open It's your data and you should have access to it from more than one company or Application. Avoid forced upgrades and security issues when MS decides to stop supporting an application.
2. Hasta la Vista: BrandonM pointed out MS's apparent contempt for the customer - and contempt is what it is. This is why Windows XP will absolutely be the last OS I ever use from MS. It doesn't make a difference to me if Vista is the greatest OS ever or can be completely killed by an animated cursor. MS has done more to alienate their customers than all the competing products and companies together have been able to do. Alternatives are now ready and available.
3. Alternative OSes: The re-emergence. This area has continued to rise in prominence thanks in large part to Linux, BSD and OS X as well as serverLinux on hosting accounts. Upper-tier Operating systems such as Apple's OS X, Linux, BSD and Solaris are exciting viable alternatives. Second-tier Operating Systems such as OS/2 (eComStation) - capable of running modern browsers (Firefox) and applications can also fill a niche.
Even fundamentally sound and high-quality third-tier OSes; such as AmigaOS4 and The RiscOS are beginning to see new momentum, as a result of Web Apps and the kind of backlash Microsoft has created among too many users. While I think these 3rd-Tier OSes need additional modern softTek, I hope they hang in there and continue to progress forward. The OS battle is a war not a battle won within a year or two.
4. Web 2.0 Apps: not just Internet/WAN-based... There is no reason why internet enabled apps couldn't reach any desktop OS. A complete local LAMP environment, for example, can easily be set up on any number of alternative Operating Systems. So if your needs can be filled with Web-based Applications, they can also be run locally (or over a LAN) for enhanced speeds. Even portable computing devices (Nokia N800, Pepper Pad, etc..) shouldn't have a problem setting up this environment.
By default, these types of apps are network-centric. Businesses already loves and need them but many solutions are currently custom-built. Web Apps will continue to grow in functionality and will find a home on low-cost LAMP infrastutures as opposed to the more expensive WIMP or proprietary windows architecture.
5. Pointed out in the article was the power of a monopoly. A user commented on it's ability to kill competition. There was at least one objection to this. Below is only one example of the many instances of mafia-like bahavior by Microsoft:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/20/be_inc_sues_microsoft/
In general, arrogant and abusive behavior by any company has a negative effect (google: Sony, DRM, backdoor rootkit OR Intel cpu tracking ID privacy). Are commercial software and digital media companies in danger? Yes... Google (as well as many users) are aware of the dark side of capitalism. This dark side has opened the door to GPL software (as well as various other open source licenses) and the famous "do no evil" guarantee from a major international vendor - probably a first in the history of commerce (maybe someone can verify this).
6. Newbies: The most important segment of the population and the hardest to reach. It wasn't until the emergence of Firefox that this group began to take notice of the failings of MS. Microsoft has never recovered from this. IE7 with it's built-in advertising, constant registry writes and lack of portability to even other MS OSes was not the solution.
Thanks but no thanks, Microsoft. You are a dinosaur, a relic from a time we will all hopefully soon forget.
The Pakistani Spectator
-Ramon
Secondly, high-bandwith connections aren't available for everyone. Think of people living in rural areas, and of people who just don't need it. Yes, those people do exist, and they won't spend 20Â/Month just to do what they already do with conventional software.
Thirdly, it's just not true that "All the computer people use Macs or Linux now". I study CS, and while most of my fellow students have tried Linux, nearly everyone returned back to Windows. That's because nearly every interesting piece of open source software is available for Windows too, while there is a lot of software that is Windows-only. An OS is just a platform for running software, and the software is what matters.
In the end, you even claim that Microsoft sucks. Well, the truth is, they don't really suck very hard anymore. Yes, Windows 1.0-ME were crap, but the Windows NT/2000/XP series is good enough for most people (I haven't tried Vista yet). I've never worked with Visual Studio, but a lot of people claim it's a superb IDE for C/C++. Then you have MS Office. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for almost everyone, and it doesn't suck any harder than it's primary competition, OpenOffice.org (In fact, OpenOffice.org's Base doesn't even come close to the functionality of Access and there is also no good replacement for Visio - no, Dia and Kivio aren't, and then there is Sharepoint and Exchange and a lot more). Claiming that Microsoft Software generally sucks doesn't help, because it's simply not true, and by expressing stuff like that you only make a fool of yourself.
Google is popular because people like Michael Arrington, Walleywag, and those biased non-professional bloggers-turned-online-reporters sing praises toward Google. How many Google apps dying? How many Google apps that people use these days? AdSense, GMail, GMap, and of course, their search engine.
I think you read online hi-tech newspaper or surf reddit.com too much where of course the content is full of new startup that does pretty much nothing astonishing.. "Scribd, the YouTube of document..." or.. the X-programming language and how X is cool but C# isn't.
Apple is sort of the "new trend" these days because it looks good. Most of the computer science students in my university now are switching to Apple of course because they saw the cool/smart kids are using it.. for browsing reddit.com and talk how cool ruby on rails and DHH are.
I bought Apple 2 weeks ago and by the 3rd day, I installed Parallel Desktop with Windows XP loaded with MS Office and Visual (C# and Web Developer) Express Studio 2005. By the way, I'm a long time FreeBSD users and I have a machine with XP dual boot + Ubuntu (now Ubuntu on the other hand is one piece of distribution... respect..!)
Microsoft is not dead. They're still up and running. They're just not visible in your path Paul. They're doing other things that do not interfere with your Web 2.0 posse. One IPTV company gave a talk in my e-Business course a month ago, she sang praise for Microsoft because they have the most complete strategy in IPTV world. FYI, IPTV is better than YouTube.
Let's admit it, people need to hear new information, new gossips, new products and new toys. But only time will tell if these new stuffs can replace Microsoft.
The other thing is, if Desktop is dead, why am I keep hearing news about Slingshots, Apollo and WPF/E ?
Maybe Microsoft knows how broken the WWW is and they prefer not to build their interest around it (other than just to be another big player next to Yahoo! and Google because they have pride and they want to be acknowledged that they still can be a big player in any field..)
MS isn't dead yet, not until they stop creating software/hardware and move to the business/consulting field. It's true that they lost the "touch" and that they lost in understanding their customer, but they're not as bad as you envisioned.
Of course you're writing this essay to fire up these hotshots or web 2.0 wannabes to quit their jobs and to forget applying for big companies and make a web2.0 thing for YCombinator (^_^)
If such blunt and sweeping statements are being made in Redmond then surely Paul Graham is right. Microsoft is dead.
To even think that IPTV and YouTube are 1 on 1 competitors represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what YouTube is all about.
Google's way is to play with dozens of ideas in the hope that somewhere around 10% of them succeed to cover their growth, sort of like an in-house venture capital. In that respect they're doing remarkably well.
I'm not sure why you think it's necessary to dismiss the accomplishments of Google and Apple while at the same time being condescending toward the people who use their products. For example, to say "Google is popular because people like Michael Arrington, Walleywag, and those biased non-professional bloggers-turned-online-reporters sing praises toward Google" is to imply that Google's products are basically worthless and the people who use them are too foolish to realize it because they've been duped into using them by a cadre of clever bloggers. This doesn't logically support your argument that Microsoft isn't dead, so why say it?
If you want to show how pg is wrong, I suggest starting by rebutting his arguments, not putting down most of the people who enjoy this site.
However, despite my confidence in XBOX, Microsoft is still going to experience a lot of bleeding because XBOX at its best isn't enough to cover for the fact that the Desktop and Windows OS are becoming irrelevant.
Here's a cluestick. HTML (even with AJAX) is not a freaking platform. Wake me up when Google has an actual platform. Until then, Paul can go live in the fantasy world with Larry Ellison where the networked thin client was going to take over years ago. Yawn.
Formula for success: 1) Write/say something controversial 2) Leverage the idea into a book 3) Profit!
What are you trying to do? Apply the John Dvorak method to Microsoft?
I can't seem to find any other way to account for that accumulation of the absurdest possible statements that this "essay" essentially is.
BTW: I suppose I am in the younger half.
From TFA: "Their 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. It was the same in the audience at startup school. All the computer people use Macs or Linux now. Windows is for grandmas, like Macs used to be in the 90s. So not only does the desktop no longer matter, no one who cares about computers uses Microsoft's anyway."
This guy needs a dose of reality. If he is "surprised" running across Windows computers, he needs to visit a business, any business. I'd say...99.9% of them use Windows. Perhaps he is just surrounding himself with counterculture hippies, or perhaps he wants to ignore reality.
From TFA: "Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops" well perhaps they need to fund more broadly. Cool is cool, but not always profitable.
From TFA: "Windows is for grandmas"...and 99.9% of corporate users, and most home users, and many students.