4 ms·

I was talking to a co-worker recently. Some old friends at Microsoft had contacted us to see about some collaboration. Then it really hit me how much Microsoft

I was talking to a co-worker recently. Some old friends at Microsoft had contacted us to see about some collaboration. Then it really hit me how much Microsoft is embedded: * University is switching to Microsoft from Google for mail/calendar * Some of us use Powerpoint for presentations, and a few docs are sometimes written in word * We certainly use Github a lot * We advertise/promote on LinkedIn * We sometimes take courses through LinkedIn Learning (paid by the university) * Now we could collaborate with them (?) * I use a Surface Pro Despite us being very heavy Linux users (like a lot of science), Microsoft is still everywhere.

hnbear 3y ago
Interesting - I get far more Google Docs links than O365, although that's just anecdata. MS is still around, and huge, but in a less obviously pervasive and all dominant way. LinkedIn isn't branded as MS, and I don't remember even seeing it mentioned anywhere. Same with Github. Contrasting with me original post about the MS of the 90s where there were few to no alternatives, and everything they produced was part of the one monolithic Wintel PC, now they're distributed and far more open. I know there's a worry about linux getting popular on Azure and then somehow screwed up by MS, I think that their quiet distribution is a sign they're less all powerful. Github users could move to Gitlab, Bitbucket (sort of), or self-host much easier than moving off MS used to be. LinkedIn is far less of "the way you use a PC" than any old MS product, and has a pretty specific niche market. It's huge, but it's not the invincibly moated. Socials come and go all the time. There are lots of LinkedInU alternatives too. I don't mean to say MS aren't huge or pervasive - they are. We're just so far on from their absolute dominance of all tech that people coming up on adulthood have no idea the world used to be MS or nothing. (For a given value of nothing, as a 90's Mac user).

hnbear 3y ago

Interesting - I get far more Google Docs links than O365, although that's just anecdata. MS is still around, and huge, but in a less obviously pervasive and all dominant way. LinkedIn isn't branded as MS, and I don't remember even seeing it mentioned anywhere. Same with Github. Contrasting with me original post about the MS of the 90s where there were few to no alternatives, and everything they produced was part of the one monolithic Wintel PC, now they're distributed and far more open. I know there's a worry about linux getting popular on Azure and then somehow screwed up by MS, I think that their quiet distribution is a sign they're less all powerful. Github users could move to Gitlab, Bitbucket (sort of), or self-host much easier than moving off MS used to be. LinkedIn is far less of "the way you use a PC" than any old MS product, and has a pretty specific niche market. It's huge, but it's not the invincibly moated. Socials come and go all the time. There are lots of LinkedInU alternatives too. I don't mean to say MS aren't huge or pervasive - they are. We're just so far on from their absolute dominance of all tech that people coming up on adulthood have no idea the world used to be MS or nothing. (For a given value of nothing, as a 90's Mac user).