5 ms·

It is an insightful piece but nothing annoys me more than sensationalism. Its click bait and I am annoyed I got sucked into reading it and annoyed that I feel

It is an insightful piece but nothing annoys me more than sensationalism. Its click bait and I am annoyed I got sucked into reading it and annoyed that I feel compelled to waste time commenting. Anyway, if it isn't obvious, the article's credibility is killed by the use of the word dead. Microsoft clearly isn't dead it just isn't the biggest player on the internet, and isn't really a player in the start up space.

caiob 13y ago
Microsoft isn't dead. ------ . They aren't big players on the web, start up space, mobile nor hardware. A bit contradictory, no?
- Ironballs 13y ago
  Not really. They're still immense players in desktop and corporate IT. That alone accounts for an immense amount of revenue, a sizeable chunk in the whole world of computing. On top of that, Azure is competitive and is gaining more and more traction, and the person who headed the Azure department is now the new CEO. Their gaming division (Xbox) is profitable, which is mostly a hardware field, and they're slowly getting a foothold in mobile and have purchased a big mobile hardware manufacturer. Their development tools (Visual Studio and .NET) are immensely popular and they've managed to capitalize on the whole JavaScript thing by making it easy to develop with VS. They're anything but dead. Of course things like Bing aren't a success yet but if MSFT figures out what do with that they'll have something other than people just Google stuff on.
- ddeck 13y ago
  I don't see why. Microsoft had $77bn in revenue last year, with net income of ~$22bn. Revenue has grown every year for the last five years and last year's was their highest ever. Not being large players in the areas mentioned doesn't imply that they are somehow "dead".
  - aeturnum 13y ago
    No one means 'dead' like RIM, they mean 'dead' like IBM. IBM is doing great - they're making lots of money in the service industry, they have a good research division, etc. They also haven't made an impact in the consumer space for years, and they probably never will again. They're just a different animal now. When PG wrote this, that's what Microsoft was. They were irrelevant in all the areas where interesting things were happening. Are they more relevant now? They seem like they might be, but it's hard to say. The essay is not about profit, it's about mindshare.
    - Goopplesoft 13y ago
      The fact that a large number of comments here are clarifying what he means by 'dead' is indicative of this baity nature of it. He specifically chose to say "Microsoft is dead" not "Microsoft has lost mindshare", and now its conveniently providing him protection by interpretation.
    - TwoBit 13y ago
      His use of the word "dead" seems a bit dramatic, though the online dictionary has one definition of dead that is: "lacking power or effect"
jey 13y ago
PG addresses this criticism here: http://paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html http://paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html
- tshile 13y ago
  Yeah, he was right, people that design software no longer had to worry about Microsoft. Except that it's 2014 and Microsoft is still relevant. The techy bubble on the west coast may all be using Mac's but microsoft products can still be found throughout the rest of the world. I like PG, and love his essays, but this one was just bad. I'm not even talking about his prediction, just the way he puts it out there. It's just a very pathetic read. For ~20 years Microsoft was a bully and received much criticism for it. Now they're just another tech company that's successful at the end of the day and has a lot of products out there being used by a lot of people. Now they're dead? Give me a break. The whole Microsoft-hate bandwagon is absolutely pathetic to watch. It's just like the Apple-hate bandwagon.
  - saturdaysaint 13y ago
    How are they still relevant exactly? They're doing some interesting things, but I know dozens of people that rarely if ever touch an MS operating system every day, unthinkable a decade ago, and they're missing out on nothing. I can't think of a must use piece of software that launched on an MS platform (outside Xbox) in the last 5 years. That puts them pretty low on the relevance totem pole.
    - tanzam75 13y ago
      > They're doing some interesting things, but I know dozens of people that rarely if ever touch an MS operating system every day, unthinkable a decade ago, and they're missing out on nothing. I knew plenty of Mac users in 2004. They didn't feel like they were missing out on anything back then. The recent past does not represent the normal state of affairs. Microsoft was not going to retain a monopoly forever, any more than IBM could've retained a monopoly. Yet IBM is larger today than it ever was as a monopoly. Markets grow, and new markets open up. Microsoft doesn't need a monopoly in every market. What it needs is something that it doesn't yet have in the various consumer markets -- 20-30% share. Large enough to matter.
spaceborn 13y ago
> the article's credibility is killed by the use of the word dead How? The author clearly doesn't mean "out of business" when he says "dead". He means that what Microsoft once was, or what it represented, is dead. The idea once conveyed by the word "Microsoft" is dead. It's not sensationalist clickbait, it's a metaphor.
- TwoBit 13y ago
  Well he may mean that, but that's not what comes to mind when most people think of the word "dead." And picking that particular word to use as liberally as he does comes across as overly dramatic.
  - spaceborn 13y ago
    I suspect this article may have been written for an audience with a collectively higher level of reading comprehension than what you describe.
- adamconroy 13y ago
  If they were really dead he wouldn't need to say it, it wouldn't be of interest to say it, and he wouldn't have bothered saying it. Microsoft only needs to be concerned when people stop banging on about them. It would have been better if had said he wished they were dead because he doesn't like them, or because he thinks they are bullies or he thinks they are ruining the web or something of that nature. I would respect that.
ballard 13y ago
Reduced to not fearing is dead. Computer Associates eeks out a living on obsolete enterprise apps that some people. And the city of San Francisco contains a direct current power utility. Edge cases are the opposite of dominance. APPL may soon be the next MSFT if they don't have another full-sized iPad up their sleeves to wow us with very soon. A solar powered flying watch that reads your mind and predictively orders groceries. :)
- chronic25 13y ago
  By that logic, every startup or small business is already dead.

caiob 13y ago

Microsoft isn't dead. ------ . They aren't big players on the web, start up space, mobile nor hardware. A bit contradictory, no?

Ironballs 13y ago
Not really. They're still immense players in desktop and corporate IT. That alone accounts for an immense amount of revenue, a sizeable chunk in the whole world of computing. On top of that, Azure is competitive and is gaining more and more traction, and the person who headed the Azure department is now the new CEO. Their gaming division (Xbox) is profitable, which is mostly a hardware field, and they're slowly getting a foothold in mobile and have purchased a big mobile hardware manufacturer. Their development tools (Visual Studio and .NET) are immensely popular and they've managed to capitalize on the whole JavaScript thing by making it easy to develop with VS. They're anything but dead. Of course things like Bing aren't a success yet but if MSFT figures out what do with that they'll have something other than people just Google stuff on.
ddeck 13y ago
I don't see why. Microsoft had $77bn in revenue last year, with net income of ~$22bn. Revenue has grown every year for the last five years and last year's was their highest ever. Not being large players in the areas mentioned doesn't imply that they are somehow "dead".
- aeturnum 13y ago
  No one means 'dead' like RIM, they mean 'dead' like IBM. IBM is doing great - they're making lots of money in the service industry, they have a good research division, etc. They also haven't made an impact in the consumer space for years, and they probably never will again. They're just a different animal now. When PG wrote this, that's what Microsoft was. They were irrelevant in all the areas where interesting things were happening. Are they more relevant now? They seem like they might be, but it's hard to say. The essay is not about profit, it's about mindshare.
  - Goopplesoft 13y ago
    The fact that a large number of comments here are clarifying what he means by 'dead' is indicative of this baity nature of it. He specifically chose to say "Microsoft is dead" not "Microsoft has lost mindshare", and now its conveniently providing him protection by interpretation.
  - TwoBit 13y ago
    His use of the word "dead" seems a bit dramatic, though the online dictionary has one definition of dead that is: "lacking power or effect"

jey 13y ago

PG addresses this criticism here: http://paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html http://paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html

tshile 13y ago
Yeah, he was right, people that design software no longer had to worry about Microsoft. Except that it's 2014 and Microsoft is still relevant. The techy bubble on the west coast may all be using Mac's but microsoft products can still be found throughout the rest of the world. I like PG, and love his essays, but this one was just bad. I'm not even talking about his prediction, just the way he puts it out there. It's just a very pathetic read. For ~20 years Microsoft was a bully and received much criticism for it. Now they're just another tech company that's successful at the end of the day and has a lot of products out there being used by a lot of people. Now they're dead? Give me a break. The whole Microsoft-hate bandwagon is absolutely pathetic to watch. It's just like the Apple-hate bandwagon.
- saturdaysaint 13y ago
  How are they still relevant exactly? They're doing some interesting things, but I know dozens of people that rarely if ever touch an MS operating system every day, unthinkable a decade ago, and they're missing out on nothing. I can't think of a must use piece of software that launched on an MS platform (outside Xbox) in the last 5 years. That puts them pretty low on the relevance totem pole.
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    > They're doing some interesting things, but I know dozens of people that rarely if ever touch an MS operating system every day, unthinkable a decade ago, and they're missing out on nothing. I knew plenty of Mac users in 2004. They didn't feel like they were missing out on anything back then. The recent past does not represent the normal state of affairs. Microsoft was not going to retain a monopoly forever, any more than IBM could've retained a monopoly. Yet IBM is larger today than it ever was as a monopoly. Markets grow, and new markets open up. Microsoft doesn't need a monopoly in every market. What it needs is something that it doesn't yet have in the various consumer markets -- 20-30% share. Large enough to matter.

spaceborn 13y ago

> the article's credibility is killed by the use of the word dead How? The author clearly doesn't mean "out of business" when he says "dead". He means that what Microsoft once was, or what it represented, is dead. The idea once conveyed by the word "Microsoft" is dead. It's not sensationalist clickbait, it's a metaphor.

TwoBit 13y ago
Well he may mean that, but that's not what comes to mind when most people think of the word "dead." And picking that particular word to use as liberally as he does comes across as overly dramatic.
- spaceborn 13y ago
  I suspect this article may have been written for an audience with a collectively higher level of reading comprehension than what you describe.
adamconroy 13y ago
If they were really dead he wouldn't need to say it, it wouldn't be of interest to say it, and he wouldn't have bothered saying it. Microsoft only needs to be concerned when people stop banging on about them. It would have been better if had said he wished they were dead because he doesn't like them, or because he thinks they are bullies or he thinks they are ruining the web or something of that nature. I would respect that.

ballard 13y ago

Reduced to not fearing is dead. Computer Associates eeks out a living on obsolete enterprise apps that some people. And the city of San Francisco contains a direct current power utility. Edge cases are the opposite of dominance. APPL may soon be the next MSFT if they don't have another full-sized iPad up their sleeves to wow us with very soon. A solar powered flying watch that reads your mind and predictively orders groceries. :)

chronic25 13y ago
By that logic, every startup or small business is already dead.