5 ms·

Is Microsoft Headed Towards Extinction?

20 points by ronnier 16y ago

hga 16y ago
Hmmm, has Microsoft "rarely invented anything that mattered"?
- i80and 16y ago
  The problem isn't that they're not inventing stuff; that R&D money isn't just spent on paperclips, and a lot of interesting stuff comes out as a result. The problem is that the inventions get squished, not released.
  - sukuriant 16y ago
    That's not entirely true. In fact, there was an article on HackerNews just the other day about one of the developments that their research department came up with. It substantially reduced the number of blue screens that occurred. Other research that has come from Microsoft R&D is the new camera used in their newest xbox peripherals. Not everything is squished.
  - hga 16y ago
    Well, there's F#, and they support the reference Haskell compiler. But the more we learn about how totally political the D part of the company is the more we're likely to believe your thesis that Microsoft Research's notable lack of impact on the greater company is due to the latter. And they don't have Xerox's excuse! Heck, they're so messed up they almost destroyed one of their foundational cash cows (Windows with the Vista debacle), which would have killed another (Office). A commentator to Mini-Microsoft's previous blog item claimed that the Windows group engineers are now required to fill out by the hour time sheets. The mind boggles ... even if that's not true, the fact that it's believable says enough.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
sen 16y ago
Toyota didn't invent the wheel, are they dying now? Apple didn't invent the phone, is the iPhone a flop and will Apple die next? And MS hasn't made anything in the last few years that is worthy of mentioning? What about Windows 7, love it or hate it, it's the fastest selling OS in history. Inventing something isn't a sign of success. Taking an idea, whether it has already been invented or not, then creating the best (or at least the most popular) iteration of that idea, is what matters. I'm no Microsoft fan-boy (I use Linux, have an Android phone, although I do own and love my Xbox 360 to be fair).. but even I can't deny Microsoft's ability to consistently churn out some pretty amazing products (yes, and their fair share of flops too.. but no-one is immune to that.. Apple Newton anyone?).
- tvon 16y ago
  Far, far too much emphasis has been put on invention/innovation/originality lately. Doing something well is (generally) more important than doing something new. IMO, anyway.
- alanh 16y ago
  Those are bad examples that miss the point. • Toyota brought hybrids to market. • Apple elevated cellphones to a completely new level, inventing underlying technology along the way. I consider both to be bold, innovative moves. I think you are defining "invention" far too narrowly. Edit: Name a single completely new "invention" from software industries. Nothing? Then stop being so pedantic.
  - sen 16y ago
    I'm talking about his statement that companies that don't "invent", don't last. Toyota didn't "invent" the Hybrid, if anything that's another case that perfectly proves my point.. Toyota took an existing invention, the Hybrid car, and created a brilliant marketable implementation of that pre-existing idea. Apple didn't "invent" the touch screen, multi touch, the cell phone, or any of the other stuff that makes the iPhone such a good phone. It just once again took pre-existing ideas and created a brilliant marketable implementation of the combined ideas into a product that has netted them billions of dollars.
manuellemos 16y ago
This article is just wishful thinking of Microsoft haters. Microsoft does need to be so much innovative as long as users buy Windows and Office. Windows 7 has been selling at 15 million copies a month. This just proves that whether or not Microsoft is innovative these days, Windows and Office sells like hot-cakes. Same goes with IBM and their mainframes. A lot of IBM haters kept predicting that IBM and mainframes would be extinct just because they are not innovative, but the reality is that it does not matter. What matters is that they have millions of loyal customers that other companies envy.
- hga 16y ago
  I don't think we can't judge the success of Microsoft by Windows 7 sales since it followed the Vista debacle. This article said Microsoft wouldn't go extinct for decades, but it would still be pretty ugly in the meanwhile if it followed IBM's mainframe path. Especially since Windows is a lot less alien that that ecosystem, porting is much more of an option. As a side note, IBM mainframes were massively innovative in their day. System 360 defined the 8 bit oriented CPU approach, there's virtualization (the real OSes haven't been able to boot on bare metal for a long time), there's something to be said for their channel IO architecture (although they regret not making them full fledged CPUs), etc. etc. And they're rock solid and generally responsible about that mission, something Sun notably stumbled on.
- megablast 16y ago
  Well, this is the problem. Microsoft can fritter away billions of dollars on these projects that do not have to have a return. This is why there stock price has not been doing well, because people do not see them producing any more winners. There attempts in search reek of desperation, paying people to use Bing. Xbox is just now starting to pay off. They have lost mobile. They are losing market share in their webserver and development tools.
tvon 16y ago
> The stark truth is that Microsoft has rarely invented anything that mattered. That doesn't matter, what matters is that lately their execution has sucked.
- troygoode 16y ago
  I think this is largely true, but Microsoft is large enough that it really isn't a single entity - the various divisions are outputting different levels of suckiness/goodness. For instance: DevDiv is on a pretty good roll right now. It is still many steps behind other communities in a lot of regards (and likely always will be), but LINQ was a huge milestone in 3.5 and the new dynamic integration options of 4.0 is a big step forward for a mainstream static language. The XBox division continues to do cool things. Last year's dashboard revamp was a huge face lift for the system, XBox Live may continue to be a wretched hive of scum and villainy but it is a well-implemented one. I'm skeptical of Kinect's value for the type of games I play, but I believe it'll be very popular amongst casuals and should be a compelling addition to the XBox's UI for non-gaming apps. Oh, and the "instant-on" 1080p streaming of pay-per-view and Netflix movies is really sick and feels like living in the future. The Zune may always be an niche choice, but its the best option if you'd prefer to spend $15/mo for "unlimited" music rather than purchasing music at $10/album. Which situation makes the most sense will vary from person to person. Last year Zune started handing out 10 song credits per month to each subscriber as well, which helped take the sting out of the normal arguments against subscription services. I don't particularly follow the Windows Phone 7 / Kin stuff, but it seems obvious they screwed up royally on at least half that proposition (and I don't expect big things out of the Win Phone 7 half either). Windows 7 has been very well perceived, though it still lags behind Linux/OSX. Office 2007 was a pretty good redesign of the suite, but Office 2010 doesn't seem to have raised the bar much. I don't think OpenOffice will ever replace MS Office, rather Office will continue to lead until GoogleDocs is fully ready to take over (its getting closer & closer every day and I don't think MS's new web-based Office will be able to compete). In retrospect, after reviewing what I've written so far, my opinion seems to be that Microsoft's offerrings haven't been that bad execution-wise lately, but that most are plagued by the fact that they are "also rans": decent products that have some strong merits, but offer no compelling reason to leave the market leader or community favorite.
borisk 16y ago
Ha, did MS invent Basic, DOS, word processing, electronic spreadsheets, GUI? billg was the king of execution. After he moved from managing the company to working on the antimonopoly case MS lost direction and now behaves like a typical Fortune 500 corporation.
gfodor 16y ago
Project Natal. Nuff said.
- gfodor 16y ago
  Why the downvotes? The thesis of this article is that Microsoft is incapable of innovation.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  It's not enough said, but it is a reasonable counterpoint. MS is taking a big risk with kinect/natal, one of the biggest they've taken in a long while.
alanh 16y ago
“The first, the best, or the free.” New Microsoft products seem to be none of the above lately, including the Zune, their phones, and their consoles (though there, “best” is at least debatable). Office and Windows are effectively “first” because they have incredible traction.
- barryfandango 16y ago
  The Windows 7 Phone OS has been hyping up for a while now and won't be out for till the holidays, so who knows, but it looks fantastic.
csomar 16y ago
Microsoft is not innovative, but does that matter? Does Offices with bureaucratic rules need innovation? Microsoft sells Windows and Office because companies don't like the cloud (less stable, speed, privacy) and don't like Apple (expensive, re-education of employees...). So Microsoft products are a good solution.
d0m 16y ago
I've got friends that work there and they have so many great technologies and products that they don't publish. I have no idea why but if you have time, go look at microsoft research center.. I mean, what are they waiting ?!
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
zaphar 16y ago
This article assumes microsoft will never improve its management structure. This may be true but is pure speculation on the authors part. A lot can happen in decades and MS had the cash to spend while working it out.
pohl 16y ago
I rarely have something positive to say about Microsoft. I was a customer until the early 90s when I decided the Open Systems world was more appealing. My disgust only increased over the years as it became well-nigh impossible to navigate a Microsoft-free career path in the shadow of the behemoth. Oddly, though, I found myself realizing just today that when Kinect comes out that I want to buy an Xbox 360 (which are finally quiet enough thanks to a 45nm process) just to play EA Sports Active 2.0. It's crazy how things change.
c00p3r 16y ago
Isn't it obvious since 2003?

20 points by ronnier 16y ago

hga 16y ago

Hmmm, has Microsoft "rarely invented anything that mattered"?

i80and 16y ago
The problem isn't that they're not inventing stuff; that R&D money isn't just spent on paperclips, and a lot of interesting stuff comes out as a result. The problem is that the inventions get squished, not released.
- sukuriant 16y ago
  That's not entirely true. In fact, there was an article on HackerNews just the other day about one of the developments that their research department came up with. It substantially reduced the number of blue screens that occurred. Other research that has come from Microsoft R&D is the new camera used in their newest xbox peripherals. Not everything is squished.
- hga 16y ago
  Well, there's F#, and they support the reference Haskell compiler. But the more we learn about how totally political the D part of the company is the more we're likely to believe your thesis that Microsoft Research's notable lack of impact on the greater company is due to the latter. And they don't have Xerox's excuse! Heck, they're so messed up they almost destroyed one of their foundational cash cows (Windows with the Vista debacle), which would have killed another (Office). A commentator to Mini-Microsoft's previous blog item claimed that the Windows group engineers are now required to fill out by the hour time sheets. The mind boggles ... even if that's not true, the fact that it's believable says enough.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

sen 16y ago

Toyota didn't invent the wheel, are they dying now? Apple didn't invent the phone, is the iPhone a flop and will Apple die next? And MS hasn't made anything in the last few years that is worthy of mentioning? What about Windows 7, love it or hate it, it's the fastest selling OS in history. Inventing something isn't a sign of success. Taking an idea, whether it has already been invented or not, then creating the best (or at least the most popular) iteration of that idea, is what matters. I'm no Microsoft fan-boy (I use Linux, have an Android phone, although I do own and love my Xbox 360 to be fair).. but even I can't deny Microsoft's ability to consistently churn out some pretty amazing products (yes, and their fair share of flops too.. but no-one is immune to that.. Apple Newton anyone?).

tvon 16y ago
Far, far too much emphasis has been put on invention/innovation/originality lately. Doing something well is (generally) more important than doing something new. IMO, anyway.
alanh 16y ago
Those are bad examples that miss the point. • Toyota brought hybrids to market. • Apple elevated cellphones to a completely new level, inventing underlying technology along the way. I consider both to be bold, innovative moves. I think you are defining "invention" far too narrowly. Edit: Name a single completely new "invention" from software industries. Nothing? Then stop being so pedantic.
- sen 16y ago
  I'm talking about his statement that companies that don't "invent", don't last. Toyota didn't "invent" the Hybrid, if anything that's another case that perfectly proves my point.. Toyota took an existing invention, the Hybrid car, and created a brilliant marketable implementation of that pre-existing idea. Apple didn't "invent" the touch screen, multi touch, the cell phone, or any of the other stuff that makes the iPhone such a good phone. It just once again took pre-existing ideas and created a brilliant marketable implementation of the combined ideas into a product that has netted them billions of dollars.

manuellemos 16y ago

This article is just wishful thinking of Microsoft haters. Microsoft does need to be so much innovative as long as users buy Windows and Office. Windows 7 has been selling at 15 million copies a month. This just proves that whether or not Microsoft is innovative these days, Windows and Office sells like hot-cakes. Same goes with IBM and their mainframes. A lot of IBM haters kept predicting that IBM and mainframes would be extinct just because they are not innovative, but the reality is that it does not matter. What matters is that they have millions of loyal customers that other companies envy.

hga 16y ago
I don't think we can't judge the success of Microsoft by Windows 7 sales since it followed the Vista debacle. This article said Microsoft wouldn't go extinct for decades, but it would still be pretty ugly in the meanwhile if it followed IBM's mainframe path. Especially since Windows is a lot less alien that that ecosystem, porting is much more of an option. As a side note, IBM mainframes were massively innovative in their day. System 360 defined the 8 bit oriented CPU approach, there's virtualization (the real OSes haven't been able to boot on bare metal for a long time), there's something to be said for their channel IO architecture (although they regret not making them full fledged CPUs), etc. etc. And they're rock solid and generally responsible about that mission, something Sun notably stumbled on.
megablast 16y ago
Well, this is the problem. Microsoft can fritter away billions of dollars on these projects that do not have to have a return. This is why there stock price has not been doing well, because people do not see them producing any more winners. There attempts in search reek of desperation, paying people to use Bing. Xbox is just now starting to pay off. They have lost mobile. They are losing market share in their webserver and development tools.

tvon 16y ago

> The stark truth is that Microsoft has rarely invented anything that mattered. That doesn't matter, what matters is that lately their execution has sucked.

troygoode 16y ago
I think this is largely true, but Microsoft is large enough that it really isn't a single entity - the various divisions are outputting different levels of suckiness/goodness. For instance: DevDiv is on a pretty good roll right now. It is still many steps behind other communities in a lot of regards (and likely always will be), but LINQ was a huge milestone in 3.5 and the new dynamic integration options of 4.0 is a big step forward for a mainstream static language. The XBox division continues to do cool things. Last year's dashboard revamp was a huge face lift for the system, XBox Live may continue to be a wretched hive of scum and villainy but it is a well-implemented one. I'm skeptical of Kinect's value for the type of games I play, but I believe it'll be very popular amongst casuals and should be a compelling addition to the XBox's UI for non-gaming apps. Oh, and the "instant-on" 1080p streaming of pay-per-view and Netflix movies is really sick and feels like living in the future. The Zune may always be an niche choice, but its the best option if you'd prefer to spend $15/mo for "unlimited" music rather than purchasing music at $10/album. Which situation makes the most sense will vary from person to person. Last year Zune started handing out 10 song credits per month to each subscriber as well, which helped take the sting out of the normal arguments against subscription services. I don't particularly follow the Windows Phone 7 / Kin stuff, but it seems obvious they screwed up royally on at least half that proposition (and I don't expect big things out of the Win Phone 7 half either). Windows 7 has been very well perceived, though it still lags behind Linux/OSX. Office 2007 was a pretty good redesign of the suite, but Office 2010 doesn't seem to have raised the bar much. I don't think OpenOffice will ever replace MS Office, rather Office will continue to lead until GoogleDocs is fully ready to take over (its getting closer & closer every day and I don't think MS's new web-based Office will be able to compete). In retrospect, after reviewing what I've written so far, my opinion seems to be that Microsoft's offerrings haven't been that bad execution-wise lately, but that most are plagued by the fact that they are "also rans": decent products that have some strong merits, but offer no compelling reason to leave the market leader or community favorite.

borisk 16y ago

Ha, did MS invent Basic, DOS, word processing, electronic spreadsheets, GUI? billg was the king of execution. After he moved from managing the company to working on the antimonopoly case MS lost direction and now behaves like a typical Fortune 500 corporation.

gfodor 16y ago

Project Natal. Nuff said.

gfodor 16y ago
Why the downvotes? The thesis of this article is that Microsoft is incapable of innovation.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
InclinedPlane 16y ago
It's not enough said, but it is a reasonable counterpoint. MS is taking a big risk with kinect/natal, one of the biggest they've taken in a long while.

alanh 16y ago

“The first, the best, or the free.” New Microsoft products seem to be none of the above lately, including the Zune, their phones, and their consoles (though there, “best” is at least debatable). Office and Windows are effectively “first” because they have incredible traction.

barryfandango 16y ago
The Windows 7 Phone OS has been hyping up for a while now and won't be out for till the holidays, so who knows, but it looks fantastic.

csomar 16y ago

Microsoft is not innovative, but does that matter? Does Offices with bureaucratic rules need innovation? Microsoft sells Windows and Office because companies don't like the cloud (less stable, speed, privacy) and don't like Apple (expensive, re-education of employees...). So Microsoft products are a good solution.

d0m 16y ago

I've got friends that work there and they have so many great technologies and products that they don't publish. I have no idea why but if you have time, go look at microsoft research center.. I mean, what are they waiting ?!

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

zaphar 16y ago

This article assumes microsoft will never improve its management structure. This may be true but is pure speculation on the authors part. A lot can happen in decades and MS had the cash to spend while working it out.

pohl 16y ago

I rarely have something positive to say about Microsoft. I was a customer until the early 90s when I decided the Open Systems world was more appealing. My disgust only increased over the years as it became well-nigh impossible to navigate a Microsoft-free career path in the shadow of the behemoth. Oddly, though, I found myself realizing just today that when Kinect comes out that I want to buy an Xbox 360 (which are finally quiet enough thanks to a 45nm process) just to play EA Sports Active 2.0. It's crazy how things change.

c00p3r 16y ago

Isn't it obvious since 2003?