6 ms·

I'm puzzled why "Proven"s comment is dead? What they wrote seems accurate. There is no reason why this comment should be downvoted, and certainly no reason why

I'm puzzled why "Proven"s comment is dead? What they wrote seems accurate. There is no reason why this comment should be downvoted, and certainly no reason why the comment should be dead. This is what they wrote: Simply speaking they actually make more products people like to use. Google essentially has just one, and it’s based on diminishing user privacy to the maximum extent possible. MS collects user data but so do Ubuntu and CentOS... not to the extent Google and FB do it. That is absolutely true. Microsoft has a huge range of products. It produced three of the most profitable products in history: Microsoft Windows Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft Office For awhile, circa 2005-2015, there was some thought that Microsoft's products were going to be replaced by online equivalents, and was a contributing factor that held down Microsoft's stock at that time. But it is now clear that Microsoft's products are going to survive. Partly, Microsoft has adapted to the online world, and partly, large enterprises are more comfortable with Microsoft's model, rather than Google or Zoho or Wufoo or any other online replacements. Microsoft Excel remains the default lingua franca of business. Google Docs and Spreadsheets has not replaced Office. And SQL Server continues to have a huge number of fans, even in a world full of very good open source databases.

gruez 8y ago
>certainly no reason why the comment should be dead. probably shadow banned. take a look at his comment history.
- ma2rten 8y ago
  HN actually has a feature so people with a certain amount of Karma can vouch for a comment like that and make it visible.
- Clubber 8y ago
  I got rate limited somehow and I can't figure out a way to even know what comment(s) / discussions kicked it off or how to remove it. Almost 5000 karma. Pretty frustrating.
  - hueving 8y ago
    Welcome to the club. You can't remove it on your own. Gonna have to grovel to a mod to convince them you can be trusted with more than 5 comments/day or whatever it is.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
skybrian 8y ago
It's been a long time since Google just had one product. I'm sure anyone here could name a dozen. Why say things that everyone knows to be false?
- craigsmansion 8y ago
  Depends on the point of view really. Google's single product: you.
  - cryptoz 8y ago
    I don't understand this. I spent $100 on a Google VR headset recently. It has no tracking or weird crap that would count me as a "product". What are you talking about? Google has a lot of products, period. Many of them have ASPs in the hundreds of dollars. Google sells real products.
- oculusthrift 8y ago
  Look at this chart and you’ll see what he means: http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/cotd52602.png http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/cotd52602.png you really can’t compare them to microsoft
  - skybrian 8y ago
    If you want to say that Google gets most of its revenue from ads, say that. It doesn't mean it's okay to say random falsehoods.
paulie_a 8y ago
While anecdotal, I only know one person that still uses Microsoft office, and that is just for Excel. Everyone else is libre office or Google docs. I grew up on office but once they introduced that stupid ribbon menu I ditched it. Apparently I was not the only one.
- goalieca 8y ago
  The ribbon menu is quite excellent and makes office usable again. I know so many people that use office, it's also the standard suite in my workplace and probably most others that aren't startups. I much prefer latex and git for doing editing but word is quite functional.
  - hermitdev 8y ago
    The ribbon menu introduces problematic issues in newer versions of Office for add-ins. Add-ins can't effectively update controls for non-active windows via the COM interface. For instance, if you have a text-box within an add-in Ribbon menu, a non-active window will not display the appropriate text for that window. Well, to be honest - it's not exactly a Ribbon issue. It's an issue with Ribbon moving to an SDI interface with Office 2010. Office 2007 worked fine, 2010 and later bomb with the aforementioned issue (at least as far as Office 2013 - last I worked on Office Add-ins).
- kinsomo 8y ago
  > While anecdotal, I only know one person that still uses Microsoft office, and that is just for Excel. Everyone else is libre office or Google docs. I grew up on office but once they introduced that stupid ribbon menu I ditched it. Apparently I was not the only one. That's highly anecdotal. It's probably not much of an overstatement to say that a large fraction of the economy literally runs on Excel notebooks.
  - metalliqaz 8y ago
    work at large company. can confirm.
- 8y ago
jobu 8y ago
While I agree with most of your points, this one seems arguable: > Microsoft Excel remains the default lingua franca of business. Google Docs and Spreadsheets has not replaced Office. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides have taken over the education market from elementary school through college, and for many businesses Google's offerings have become interchangeable with Microsoft's. Outlook and Excel still have a strong hold on larger companies because Google hasn't matched features, but Google Docs are much easier to share and collaborate with coworkers.
- outside1234 8y ago
  That used to be true but it is no longer - Office 365 has a far higher revenue and growth rate than Google Apps - and when you are a corporate customer, it is far better integrated into your existing IT investments.
- blanderman 8y ago
  LibreOffice is now an excellent alternative for both business and home use.
  - colechristensen 8y ago
    Is it really? I have occasionally tried open office and clones for a very long time and "adequate alternative" was the best impression I ever got and far from the worst.
    - umanwizard 8y ago
      Just to be clear, LibreOffice is not a clone of OpenOffice. It is OpenOffice -- the project was forced to change its name for legal reasons.
      - blanderman 8y ago
        It was forked from OpenOffice after Oracle bought OO, and most of the core developers moved to LibreOffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice
golfer 8y ago
Give Google a little more credit. They have 7 separate products with over 1 billion users each [0]. Search, Gmail, Android, Chrome, Maps, Youtube and the Google Play Store. [0]: https://www.popsci.com/google-has-7-products-with-1-billion-users https://www.popsci.com/google-has-7-products-with-1-billion-...
- youdontknowtho 8y ago
  Agreed, but they still make like 90% of their money from ads.
  - golfer 8y ago
    You're close. The number is currently 86% and has been falling over time. https://abc.xyz/investor/pdf/2018Q1_alphabet_earnings_release.pdf https://abc.xyz/investor/pdf/2018Q1_alphabet_earnings_releas...
    - youdontknowtho 8y ago
      Oh. I stand corrected. Thank god all those PHD's are working on showing me ads. We're saved.
- TAForObvReasons 8y ago
  Those have strong user counts because they are free or significantly less expensive than alternatives. Search is free -- if they decided to charge anything for search, people would switch to yahoo or bing in a heartbeat. If they charged for chrome, that would be a red letter day for Firefox. Android would see a hard fork.
  - fauigerzigerk 8y ago
    But among all the free search engines people choose Google. That has to mean something. It's true after all that competitors are only a click away. And I'm saying this in spite of being less and less happy with Google's search results lately. It has become very difficult to prevent Google from generalising queries beyond all recognition.
NicoJuicy 8y ago
In use both companies products. Os = Windows en android. Docs en Office Chromecast Xbox 360+ kinect Google Azure Google cloud for maps api
metalliqaz 8y ago
And in addition to the desktop offerings, they have Azure which has decent corporate penetration, and Xbox which fairly successful in homes. They really dropped the ball on mobile, but perhaps they will claw some back through Surface.
swebs 8y ago
>MS collects user data but so do Ubuntu and CentOS Wow, that wins the most disingenuous statement of the year. Ubuntu just asks for your system configuration, which you can say no to. https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/02/ubuntu-data-collection-opt-out https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/02/ubuntu-data-collection-o... Microsoft's data collection is far more insidious and can not be disabled. https://www.computerworld.com/article/2968288/microsoft-windows/windows-10-makes-diagnostic-data-collection-compulsory.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2968288/microsoft-wind... Microsoft also collects: - User contacts - Calendar data - Location data - Keyboard input (keylogger) - Microphone input (wiretap) - Local files - Installed programs - How long you interact with programs - Browser history
bllguo 8y ago
I hope you are aware you can vouch for dead comments?
zpallin 8y ago
> Google essentially has just one, and it’s based on diminishing user privacy to the maximum extent possible. You seem to be defending Proven, so why do you think this is correct? Google does not have just one single product. It may have only one "profitable" product through direct sales (adsense) but Google offers many popular services, Gmail, Google Hangouts, Google Drive, Google Play, 8.8.8.8, GCP to name a few. Not to mention, Google is the driving force behind a number of open source technologies, such as Android, Kubernetes, Golang. The funny thing about this is that I don't really care about defending Google against Microsoft. I just think it's strange that you, nor Proven, are trying to be factual about this.

gruez 8y ago

>certainly no reason why the comment should be dead. probably shadow banned. take a look at his comment history.

ma2rten 8y ago
HN actually has a feature so people with a certain amount of Karma can vouch for a comment like that and make it visible.
Clubber 8y ago
I got rate limited somehow and I can't figure out a way to even know what comment(s) / discussions kicked it off or how to remove it. Almost 5000 karma. Pretty frustrating.
- hueving 8y ago
  Welcome to the club. You can't remove it on your own. Gonna have to grovel to a mod to convince them you can be trusted with more than 5 comments/day or whatever it is.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

skybrian 8y ago

It's been a long time since Google just had one product. I'm sure anyone here could name a dozen. Why say things that everyone knows to be false?

craigsmansion 8y ago
Depends on the point of view really. Google's single product: you.
- cryptoz 8y ago
  I don't understand this. I spent $100 on a Google VR headset recently. It has no tracking or weird crap that would count me as a "product". What are you talking about? Google has a lot of products, period. Many of them have ASPs in the hundreds of dollars. Google sells real products.
oculusthrift 8y ago
Look at this chart and you’ll see what he means: http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/cotd52602.png http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/cotd52602.png you really can’t compare them to microsoft
- skybrian 8y ago
  If you want to say that Google gets most of its revenue from ads, say that. It doesn't mean it's okay to say random falsehoods.

paulie_a 8y ago

While anecdotal, I only know one person that still uses Microsoft office, and that is just for Excel. Everyone else is libre office or Google docs. I grew up on office but once they introduced that stupid ribbon menu I ditched it. Apparently I was not the only one.

goalieca 8y ago
The ribbon menu is quite excellent and makes office usable again. I know so many people that use office, it's also the standard suite in my workplace and probably most others that aren't startups. I much prefer latex and git for doing editing but word is quite functional.
- hermitdev 8y ago
  The ribbon menu introduces problematic issues in newer versions of Office for add-ins. Add-ins can't effectively update controls for non-active windows via the COM interface. For instance, if you have a text-box within an add-in Ribbon menu, a non-active window will not display the appropriate text for that window. Well, to be honest - it's not exactly a Ribbon issue. It's an issue with Ribbon moving to an SDI interface with Office 2010. Office 2007 worked fine, 2010 and later bomb with the aforementioned issue (at least as far as Office 2013 - last I worked on Office Add-ins).
kinsomo 8y ago
> While anecdotal, I only know one person that still uses Microsoft office, and that is just for Excel. Everyone else is libre office or Google docs. I grew up on office but once they introduced that stupid ribbon menu I ditched it. Apparently I was not the only one. That's highly anecdotal. It's probably not much of an overstatement to say that a large fraction of the economy literally runs on Excel notebooks.
- metalliqaz 8y ago
  work at large company. can confirm.
8y ago

jobu 8y ago

While I agree with most of your points, this one seems arguable: > Microsoft Excel remains the default lingua franca of business. Google Docs and Spreadsheets has not replaced Office. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides have taken over the education market from elementary school through college, and for many businesses Google's offerings have become interchangeable with Microsoft's. Outlook and Excel still have a strong hold on larger companies because Google hasn't matched features, but Google Docs are much easier to share and collaborate with coworkers.

outside1234 8y ago
That used to be true but it is no longer - Office 365 has a far higher revenue and growth rate than Google Apps - and when you are a corporate customer, it is far better integrated into your existing IT investments.
blanderman 8y ago
LibreOffice is now an excellent alternative for both business and home use.
- colechristensen 8y ago
  Is it really? I have occasionally tried open office and clones for a very long time and "adequate alternative" was the best impression I ever got and far from the worst.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    Just to be clear, LibreOffice is not a clone of OpenOffice. It is OpenOffice -- the project was forced to change its name for legal reasons.
    - blanderman 8y ago
      It was forked from OpenOffice after Oracle bought OO, and most of the core developers moved to LibreOffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice

golfer 8y ago

Give Google a little more credit. They have 7 separate products with over 1 billion users each [0]. Search, Gmail, Android, Chrome, Maps, Youtube and the Google Play Store. [0]: https://www.popsci.com/google-has-7-products-with-1-billion-users https://www.popsci.com/google-has-7-products-with-1-billion-...

youdontknowtho 8y ago
Agreed, but they still make like 90% of their money from ads.
- golfer 8y ago
  You're close. The number is currently 86% and has been falling over time. https://abc.xyz/investor/pdf/2018Q1_alphabet_earnings_release.pdf https://abc.xyz/investor/pdf/2018Q1_alphabet_earnings_releas...
  - youdontknowtho 8y ago
    Oh. I stand corrected. Thank god all those PHD's are working on showing me ads. We're saved.
TAForObvReasons 8y ago
Those have strong user counts because they are free or significantly less expensive than alternatives. Search is free -- if they decided to charge anything for search, people would switch to yahoo or bing in a heartbeat. If they charged for chrome, that would be a red letter day for Firefox. Android would see a hard fork.
- fauigerzigerk 8y ago
  But among all the free search engines people choose Google. That has to mean something. It's true after all that competitors are only a click away. And I'm saying this in spite of being less and less happy with Google's search results lately. It has become very difficult to prevent Google from generalising queries beyond all recognition.

NicoJuicy 8y ago

In use both companies products. Os = Windows en android. Docs en Office Chromecast Xbox 360+ kinect Google Azure Google cloud for maps api

metalliqaz 8y ago

And in addition to the desktop offerings, they have Azure which has decent corporate penetration, and Xbox which fairly successful in homes. They really dropped the ball on mobile, but perhaps they will claw some back through Surface.

swebs 8y ago

>MS collects user data but so do Ubuntu and CentOS Wow, that wins the most disingenuous statement of the year. Ubuntu just asks for your system configuration, which you can say no to. https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/02/ubuntu-data-collection-opt-out https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/02/ubuntu-data-collection-o... Microsoft's data collection is far more insidious and can not be disabled. https://www.computerworld.com/article/2968288/microsoft-windows/windows-10-makes-diagnostic-data-collection-compulsory.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2968288/microsoft-wind... Microsoft also collects: - User contacts - Calendar data - Location data - Keyboard input (keylogger) - Microphone input (wiretap) - Local files - Installed programs - How long you interact with programs - Browser history

bllguo 8y ago

I hope you are aware you can vouch for dead comments?

zpallin 8y ago

> Google essentially has just one, and it’s based on diminishing user privacy to the maximum extent possible. You seem to be defending Proven, so why do you think this is correct? Google does not have just one single product. It may have only one "profitable" product through direct sales (adsense) but Google offers many popular services, Gmail, Google Hangouts, Google Drive, Google Play, 8.8.8.8, GCP to name a few. Not to mention, Google is the driving force behind a number of open source technologies, such as Android, Kubernetes, Golang. The funny thing about this is that I don't really care about defending Google against Microsoft. I just think it's strange that you, nor Proven, are trying to be factual about this.