4 ms·

>Walk into a VCs office and tell them that you have the next great idea for a Windows app and watch how fast you get laughed out of the office. In most of the

>Walk into a VCs office and tell them that you have the next great idea for a Windows app and watch how fast you get laughed out of the office. In most of the world the "goal" isn't to go raise VC money. It's to develop a product and earn a living. Maybe people building Windows apps for the massive market are doing okay without the desire to raise billions and take over the world?

scarface74 8y ago
Yes. My goal is also to make money as well as most other developers. Would you suggest I turn the focus of my career back to writing Win32 API based apps or WPF or UWP apps? Where are all of these companies that are making money selling Windows apps? Where all of the jobs for Windows desktop developers?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  In the place of myth and legend: outside of SV. I know, it's crazy.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Name some companies making any substantial money selling Windows desktop apps besides Microsoft and Adobe? Again games don't count, they aren't for the most part developing "Windows apps" they are developing apps on top of game engines.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
      Depends on your definition of "substantial money." There are many, many ecosystems where a Windows desktop app is the ideal platform. I spend my days writing libraries for Windows desktop software and sharing them with many other companies in the same space. Almost by definition, most of the companies in any particular set of domains will not be household names you've heard of. There are really very few consumer software businesses, but somehow these unknown companies manage to be pretty damn profitable, even if they're not on the scope of Microsoft or Adobe.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        Still no one is giving specific examples. I spent my first 12 years as a developer doing Windows development,cut my teeth on MFC,ATL, COM/DCOM, VB6 and later on Windows Forms with .Net. But by mid 2008 the writing was on the wall and I had spent so much time at one company, I found that my skillset wasn't marketable. No one wanted "Windows desktop developers". They wanted web developers. I've spent last 10 years being a boring old corporate Enterprise Developer nowhere near Silicon Valley. On my list of things that I'm focusing on these days - learning at least one modern front end web framework, learning Node JS (I'm mostly a C# developer now), become more proficient with AWS from the netops/developer/devops perspective (I'm slightly above average now), Docker, etc., Windows desktop development ranks right below learning COBOL. Looking at the market for front end technology, why would any developer who wants to stay competitive choose to focus on Windows development over Web and mobile.
        pjmlp 8y ago
        Because Web never will catch up with native, is changing into yet another VM just to try to keep up with mobile, and mobile is only a money maker when doing consulting and selling training, the apps gold rush is gone. Windows development pays the bills, owns the tablets, laptops and desktop space outside US, and if that means being paid like COBOL consultants, even better.
        scarface74 8y ago
        Do you have any numbers to back that up? The best I can find are the Stack Overflow developer survey for what developers are actually doing.... https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/ https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/ Windows software development jobs have been in decline for years... https://www.itwriting.com/blog/9121-stackoverflow-developer-survey-shows-decline-in-c-windows.html https://www.itwriting.com/blog/9121-stackoverflow-developer-...
        pjmlp 8y ago
        The head hunters that fill my inbox. I guess with 2 021 worldwide currently open positions on LinkedIn, there is something for many of us to be busy for many years. Classic music also has been on the decline for centuries, yet composers still sell albums.
    - jpindar 8y ago
      Autodesk, Altium, Mentor Graphics, Cadence, Keysight, National Instruments, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Microchip, CCS, Keil, IAR, NXP, Mikroelektronika, Mitubishi, Xilinx etc. EDA software, CAD/CAM software, instrument control software, electronic simulation and modeling software, specialized compilers/IDEs, etc. are mostly made for Windows desktops (although more and more of them are also supporting Linux nowadays).
      - scarface74 8y ago
        And if you combine the revenue of all of those companies, how do they stack up? To put it into perspective King (maker of Candy Crush) - just one mobile app developer made $2 billion in revenue last year (https://www.statista.com/statistics/288974/king-annual-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/288974/king-annual-reven...) That's about the same as Autodesk (https://www.statista.com/statistics/416235/net-revenue-of-autodesk-inc/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/416235/net-revenue-of-au...). Having a dominance in a platform (Windows) with a shrinking market is not a winning formula. Why do you think Microsoft is de-emphasizing Windows? From no less than the CEO of Microsoft. At our core, Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world. We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more.
        jpindar 8y ago
        You just said games don't count.
        scarface74 8y ago
        I said games don’t count as far as a reason to care about Windows desktop dominance because “Windows” games are usually written on top of a cross platform framework that is fairly easily ported to another platform. Claiming Windows is important because of the number of Unity games that run on it is about like saying Windows is important because of the number of websites you can go to on it.
    - zaat 8y ago
      SAP
      - scarface74 8y ago
        SAP isn't "windows desktop software". This whole thread started by saying that Microsoft can leverage its Windows dominance. SAP can either be used as web based software and even thier "Windows" Software is mostly built using thier proprietary cross platform ABAP platform.
        zaat 8y ago
        I wasn't completely serious about SAP, just meant to gesture to the the general direction of where I see commercial windows software. There are many corporate software vendors I deal with that sell windows software, for an example a suit of Office plugins that connects to SharePoint and do documents versioning. Another area where I see windows desktop software, and I don't see it goes anywhere soon, is in industrial, medical and labs equipment control.
    - mywittyname 8y ago
      Games are one of the few remaining pieces of software that require tight platform integration. And even this is changing with WebGL. If you take games totally out of the equation, App Store profits drop substantially. Most third-party apps are games or native wrappers for web UIs (pinterest, spotify, netflix). Of those, most are free or tied to a subscription that's device independent.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        Even if that's the case, that still supports my original point that Microsoft having 90% of the desktop PC market has become increasingly meaningless in the age of web and then mobile. In the grand scheme of things, few new software initiatives are targeting Windows compared to web and mobile and only a select few companies are making any real money writing desktop software. The example given of Autodesk kind of proves my point. They have the same annual revenue making CAD software that King digital has making Candy Crush. Games aren't tightly tied to a single mobile platform now - most of them use a cross platform game engine. The reason they won't go to the web is payments are frictionless on mobile and you don't have to trust anyone but the platform provider. Today anyone can setup their own shopping site and probably manage their own shipping but most small merchants still sell on Amazon.
        mywittyname 8y ago
        I mean, I agree with your argument -- I'm just extending it to say that no platform dominance matters in the era of the web. Any software with mass-market appeal is going to be web-based so that it can reach the largest possible audience.
  - tsenkov 8y ago
    Sarcasm: 'Overwhelming'
wetpaws 8y ago
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2009/09/05/desktop-aps-versus-web-apps/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2009/09/05/desktop-aps-versus-web-... This is an excellent overview from a developer point on why you don't want to develop desktop apps even if you don't want to depend on VC. This is 2009, mind you.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Desktop internal apps are a nightmare. Deployment is more difficult, it's harder to find developers willing to work on them, the only way you can access them remotely from a mobile device is using something like Citrix Server, the desktop management tools that you can use to deploy desktop apps are error prone, etc. I said VC, but even as an architect of internal line of business enterprise apps, I would be kicked out of any managers office if I suggested developing a desktop app. Heck these days it's hard to convince companies to write real native mobile apps instead of using one of the cross platform web based mobile app platforms.

scarface74 8y ago

Yes. My goal is also to make money as well as most other developers. Would you suggest I turn the focus of my career back to writing Win32 API based apps or WPF or UWP apps? Where are all of these companies that are making money selling Windows apps? Where all of the jobs for Windows desktop developers?

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
In the place of myth and legend: outside of SV. I know, it's crazy.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Name some companies making any substantial money selling Windows desktop apps besides Microsoft and Adobe? Again games don't count, they aren't for the most part developing "Windows apps" they are developing apps on top of game engines.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
    Depends on your definition of "substantial money." There are many, many ecosystems where a Windows desktop app is the ideal platform. I spend my days writing libraries for Windows desktop software and sharing them with many other companies in the same space. Almost by definition, most of the companies in any particular set of domains will not be household names you've heard of. There are really very few consumer software businesses, but somehow these unknown companies manage to be pretty damn profitable, even if they're not on the scope of Microsoft or Adobe.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Still no one is giving specific examples. I spent my first 12 years as a developer doing Windows development,cut my teeth on MFC,ATL, COM/DCOM, VB6 and later on Windows Forms with .Net. But by mid 2008 the writing was on the wall and I had spent so much time at one company, I found that my skillset wasn't marketable. No one wanted "Windows desktop developers". They wanted web developers. I've spent last 10 years being a boring old corporate Enterprise Developer nowhere near Silicon Valley. On my list of things that I'm focusing on these days - learning at least one modern front end web framework, learning Node JS (I'm mostly a C# developer now), become more proficient with AWS from the netops/developer/devops perspective (I'm slightly above average now), Docker, etc., Windows desktop development ranks right below learning COBOL. Looking at the market for front end technology, why would any developer who wants to stay competitive choose to focus on Windows development over Web and mobile.
      - pjmlp 8y ago
        Because Web never will catch up with native, is changing into yet another VM just to try to keep up with mobile, and mobile is only a money maker when doing consulting and selling training, the apps gold rush is gone. Windows development pays the bills, owns the tablets, laptops and desktop space outside US, and if that means being paid like COBOL consultants, even better.
        scarface74 8y ago
        Do you have any numbers to back that up? The best I can find are the Stack Overflow developer survey for what developers are actually doing.... https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/ https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/ Windows software development jobs have been in decline for years... https://www.itwriting.com/blog/9121-stackoverflow-developer-survey-shows-decline-in-c-windows.html https://www.itwriting.com/blog/9121-stackoverflow-developer-...
        pjmlp 8y ago
        The head hunters that fill my inbox. I guess with 2 021 worldwide currently open positions on LinkedIn, there is something for many of us to be busy for many years. Classic music also has been on the decline for centuries, yet composers still sell albums.
  - jpindar 8y ago
    Autodesk, Altium, Mentor Graphics, Cadence, Keysight, National Instruments, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Microchip, CCS, Keil, IAR, NXP, Mikroelektronika, Mitubishi, Xilinx etc. EDA software, CAD/CAM software, instrument control software, electronic simulation and modeling software, specialized compilers/IDEs, etc. are mostly made for Windows desktops (although more and more of them are also supporting Linux nowadays).
    - scarface74 8y ago
      And if you combine the revenue of all of those companies, how do they stack up? To put it into perspective King (maker of Candy Crush) - just one mobile app developer made $2 billion in revenue last year (https://www.statista.com/statistics/288974/king-annual-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/288974/king-annual-reven...) That's about the same as Autodesk (https://www.statista.com/statistics/416235/net-revenue-of-autodesk-inc/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/416235/net-revenue-of-au...). Having a dominance in a platform (Windows) with a shrinking market is not a winning formula. Why do you think Microsoft is de-emphasizing Windows? From no less than the CEO of Microsoft. At our core, Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world. We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more.
      - jpindar 8y ago
        You just said games don't count.
        scarface74 8y ago
        I said games don’t count as far as a reason to care about Windows desktop dominance because “Windows” games are usually written on top of a cross platform framework that is fairly easily ported to another platform. Claiming Windows is important because of the number of Unity games that run on it is about like saying Windows is important because of the number of websites you can go to on it.
  - zaat 8y ago
    SAP
    - scarface74 8y ago
      SAP isn't "windows desktop software". This whole thread started by saying that Microsoft can leverage its Windows dominance. SAP can either be used as web based software and even thier "Windows" Software is mostly built using thier proprietary cross platform ABAP platform.
      - zaat 8y ago
        I wasn't completely serious about SAP, just meant to gesture to the the general direction of where I see commercial windows software. There are many corporate software vendors I deal with that sell windows software, for an example a suit of Office plugins that connects to SharePoint and do documents versioning. Another area where I see windows desktop software, and I don't see it goes anywhere soon, is in industrial, medical and labs equipment control.
  - mywittyname 8y ago
    Games are one of the few remaining pieces of software that require tight platform integration. And even this is changing with WebGL. If you take games totally out of the equation, App Store profits drop substantially. Most third-party apps are games or native wrappers for web UIs (pinterest, spotify, netflix). Of those, most are free or tied to a subscription that's device independent.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Even if that's the case, that still supports my original point that Microsoft having 90% of the desktop PC market has become increasingly meaningless in the age of web and then mobile. In the grand scheme of things, few new software initiatives are targeting Windows compared to web and mobile and only a select few companies are making any real money writing desktop software. The example given of Autodesk kind of proves my point. They have the same annual revenue making CAD software that King digital has making Candy Crush. Games aren't tightly tied to a single mobile platform now - most of them use a cross platform game engine. The reason they won't go to the web is payments are frictionless on mobile and you don't have to trust anyone but the platform provider. Today anyone can setup their own shopping site and probably manage their own shipping but most small merchants still sell on Amazon.
      - mywittyname 8y ago
        I mean, I agree with your argument -- I'm just extending it to say that no platform dominance matters in the era of the web. Any software with mass-market appeal is going to be web-based so that it can reach the largest possible audience.
- tsenkov 8y ago
  Sarcasm: 'Overwhelming'

wetpaws 8y ago

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2009/09/05/desktop-aps-versus-web-apps/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2009/09/05/desktop-aps-versus-web-... This is an excellent overview from a developer point on why you don't want to develop desktop apps even if you don't want to depend on VC. This is 2009, mind you.

scarface74 8y ago
Desktop internal apps are a nightmare. Deployment is more difficult, it's harder to find developers willing to work on them, the only way you can access them remotely from a mobile device is using something like Citrix Server, the desktop management tools that you can use to deploy desktop apps are error prone, etc. I said VC, but even as an architect of internal line of business enterprise apps, I would be kicked out of any managers office if I suggested developing a desktop app. Heck these days it's hard to convince companies to write real native mobile apps instead of using one of the cross platform web based mobile app platforms.