17 ms·

Microsoft is Dead

• gibsonf1 20y ago
  I agree, the shadow is gone - but for how long? As much as I am frustrated with having to use XP (My Autodesk BIM cad system only runs on it), I wouldn't underestimate MS's ability to bounce back from bad directions/decisions like they have in the past. If Gates radically changes his vision and business model to the new web world and gets Balmer to agree, they could dominate again. But can a company that has written extensively buggy software in the least lean way transform at this late date? If it were anyone else other than Gates at the top of the company, I would say no. But does Gates have the energy this late in his career to make such a dramatic change in his business? Maybe not.
  • ph0rque 20y ago
    Speaking of CAD software, how long until we will have an online version? (I would guess CAD software is on the same order of complexity as photoshop.) Are any perspective YCers working on it?
    • gibsonf1 20y ago
      It's highly unlikely in the near term. The software my firm uses is Autodesk Revit's "Building Information Modeling", a highly evolved "intelligent" 3d modeling database system. The software uses every byte of ram, every hz of cpu, every byte & hertz of video interface on a users system - it takes serious horsepower to run a large model which is accessed over the network by multiple users. (Refreshing the model remotely via vpn over dsl can take 15 minutes) I don't see AJAX coming close to handling this kind of load for a long while. Also, the files can be huge, and in a web-hosted environment, the file storage would have to be absolutely massive and absolutely fast. An interesting note is that Autodesk started out with Autocad, which they coded in lisp (eventually transformed into autolisp.) They took the MS model to software development and proceeded to make bigger and more complex versions with increasing quantities of bugs to the extent that multiple crashes per day were the norm. But they owned 80% of the world cad market, they became the 2nd largest software company in the world. Revit was developed by a small company with an incredibly sound software architecture with a database at the core(without the massive bandaids that had piled up in Autocad and are still there today.) and developed a devoted cult following. Autodesk fought back with "Architectural Desktop", which I bought (before I knew about Revit). Their version: Cut a section through a building, wait 30 minutes. Revit, Cut a section through a building - instantly. Autodesk got very scared, then bought Revit. They saw the writing on the wall and undersood that Revit would be completely replacing Autocad in the next few years, which it is doing now. So if MS can buy Google, they'll be all set :)
• lak 20y ago
  I guess I must be old now, because I find it hard to believe that a company that still has their software running on 95% of the world's computers is "dead". I just don't get this argument. I totally agree that there's this very small, very insular part of the world that thinks it's dead, but that part of the world is apparently not working in large companies, or trading files with professionals in any profession other than design (e.g., try to find an Architect using Mac-based software -- they can't, because they couldn't trade files with each other or clients). I'll believe MS is dead when they have, say, less than 70% of the world's computers running their operating system and when my corporate clients stop asking for files in Word format. Until then, they're just a monopoly that has massive amounts of power but that the cool kids aren't interested in. It's like saying POTS telephones are dead -- they might not be interesting, but that's a big difference from being dead.
  • gibsonf1 20y ago
    I think PG's point isn't that MS will vanish or is vanishing from the current installed user base point of view (mainly their OS), but that they no longer control the direction of software development. This is a major opening for us Entrepreneurs that, as PG pointed out, has never happened before. MS Office is clearly under serious attack now, and I'm sure the OS will follow in a few years unless MS takes a major tack in their business, which seems unlikely but is possible. If you are a top-notch programmer brimming with big ideas, do you want to work for MS? Probably not, and I think that is the biggest barrier they have to succeeding in the new web world. You can buy programming mercenaries with enough cash, but the genius paradigm-shifters will be hard to find over at MS.
    • hello_moto 20y ago
      May I know whom attacking MS Office? Last time I checked, none of the online web two point ooh software can open big documents. These web-apps only match probably 20% of MS Office features and it's simply not enough these days when people are more tech-savvy than in the past.
      • bootload 20y ago
• far33d 20y ago
  I can't decide whether etiquette requires you to allow the author of an article to post it if they are members (founders) of the site. Then again, etiquette doesn't help entrepreneurs much.
  • ehabkost 20y ago
    I read this comment multiple times, but I just couldn't understand what is it about.
    • nostrademons 20y ago
      He's wondering if PG should have been the one to post this article, given that PG wrote it and also wrote this site. And I dunno about news.YC, but Reddit at least doesn't work that way. I've written pieces that were picked up on Reddit and posted by other people. I found it rather flattering; it meant other folks thought it was interesting enough to post without my intervention.
• mukund 20y ago
  Well what hurts me is the thing they have forced people like me to stick to MSFT. Atleast in our univ, they have exclusive tie up with MSFT and they install 99.99% windows only. Its rather 0.01% apple. But some who have admin access put on linux. Most of standard mech engg softwares run on windows. MSFT gives their products at dead cheap prices ... as low as $5 a CD. These dirty tactics are seeing them ahead, but it may not continue as people start seeing the reality. For MSFT to die, these loops must be plugged and nailed to accelerate its death.
  • jellerbee 20y ago
    So let me get this straight: Microsoft offers your university worthless software that provides no value to end users. The university knows its worthless software, you know its worthless, but the university is forced to buy it anyway because the dirty rotten scoundrels at Microsoft set the price so low. University S/W Buyer: "We have to buy some MS Software." University S/W Boss: "Why?" University S/W Buyer: "Its $5.00 dollars per CD" University S/W Boss: "Ok, then I guess we have no choice."
    • jjrs 20y ago
      kind of. look at it from the competitor's end. they can't afford to sell at $5, they'd go under. It's like wal-mart putting mom and pop record stores out of business by selling CDs at cost. So MS keeps their software standard at colleges, which influences students' buying habits (god forbid they grow accustomed to Mac or Linux and lose their fear of them).
      • mukund 20y ago
        Well with the amount of fees i shelled out in here, buying a computer, installing linux and learning it wasnt easy. So had to go for computers provided by schools with no admin rights :(
  • theoutlander 20y ago
    I feel lucky to have experienced Solaris which I loved back in school... of course now I am into Redhat / freeBSD ... and of course Windows!
• dawie 20y ago
  I agree Paul, but Microsoft is still running that boring Enterprise Software that you always talk about. Also Microsoft's shitty software pays for my lunch,dinner, beer and women.
  • Goladus 20y ago
    Microsoft has the corporate desktop, but it's ripe for the taking. Google and various startups are trying to get their foot in the door. Big corporations don't do anything fast and no one expects windows to be wiped out. There are still mainframes out there running ancient software. In some cases simple terminal emulator front ends still outperform newer, browser-based alternatives. And microsoft will still probably come out with new useful and popular products, but they won't be the sort that cause shockwaves throughout the whole industry (well maybe the Game Industry but that wasn't the point).
• amichail 20y ago
  I think the situation is somewhat unpredictable since Microsoft could try to break AJAX apps by introducing all sorts of problems in IE. Unreliable AJAX apps under IE would discourage users from using web apps. Most users are generally clueless and will not try to switch to another browser. Microsoft could also undermine the business model of many web services by providing free advertising. The ads could even appear on users' desktops so improving their search engine may not even be necessary.
  • brett 20y ago
    It would take an incredible amount of sack for Microsoft to deliberately break IE; there's no way they would ever take a risk like that and I really doubt it would play out like you think. Web based applications have way too much momentum. Initially the clueless would go without, but the backlash would be so severe in the development and tech communities that pretty soon the clueless would have a working alternative preinstalled. The big internet companies (the ones we should still actually fear) would step in right away and partner with consumer hardware companies to make this happen.
    • amichail 20y ago
      Even if Microsoft does not intentionally break IE, what incentive would it have to improve support for AJAX apps? For example, what incentive would it have to support an offline mode for AJAX apps?
      • brett 20y ago
        You think Microsoft can stop web app innovation by just ignoring it themselves? Their incentive is to maintain their market share. IE7 is their attempt to get their ass in gear for precisely that reason. The market's not going to stick around and wait for IE and the web will progress whether MSFT wants it to or not.
        • amichail 20y ago
          Well, apparently MS killed Java on the client: http://java.sys-con.com/read/37121.htm http://java.sys-con.com/read/37121.htm So yes, they could make life difficult for AJAX developers.
• randallsquared 20y ago
  Microsoft is still an enormously profitable and powerful company in the real world, and you should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in your insular little "Web 2.0" bubble. More seriously, I mostly do business right now with small businesses (2-8 people), and some stupidly high proportion of these businesses run totally on Windows. When they go to buy the computer(s) they need, it never even occurs to them that there is any choice about whether to buy Windows, because Windows is just what programs run in. This kind of customer laughs ruefully along with the Apple commercials they see on TV, but I don't think it ever crosses their mind that they could actually buy a Mac for their business, much less a Linux box. Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, Outlook, and Exchange are the core software apps of 90+% of small businesses.
  • zach 20y ago
    Come on, we're not talking about the homefront here, we're talking about the frontier. This is the startup news site; we're not here to talk about the current industry standard.
    • randallsquared 20y ago
      Well, the first part of my comment was a joke, and the second part was only asserting that Microsoft wasn't going to go away soon, because they're a de facto standard. I'm not saying that I worry about them for my own projects, or that you should for yours. :)
      • zach 20y ago
        My apologies. I didn't get that "more seriously" indicated that the first part was completely tongue-in-cheek.
        • randallsquared 20y ago
          Oh, no problem. I thought that more people would notice that it's lifted directly from the article. On the other hand, I guess it's quite possible that it isn't funny. :)
• hello_moto 20y ago
  Paul, I think you're being an ignorant a little bit in this case. Have you seen how Microsoft become the second major player in the game industry behind Sony PS brand? I think right now more people own XBOX 360 compare to Sony PS3. Of course there's Wii, the Apple of Console machine. Google is popular because people like Michael Arrington, Walleywag, and those biased non-professional bloggers-turned-online-reporters sing praises toward Google. How many Google apps dying? How many Google apps that people use these days? AdSense, GMail, GMap, and of course, their search engine. I think you read online hi-tech newspaper or surf reddit.com too much where of course the content is full of new startup that does pretty much nothing astonishing.. "Scribd, the YouTube of document..." or.. the X-programming language and how X is cool but C# isn't. Apple is sort of the "new trend" these days because it looks good. Most of the computer science students in my university now are switching to Apple of course because they saw the cool/smart kids are using it.. for browsing reddit.com and talk how cool ruby on rails and DHH are. I bought Apple 2 weeks ago and by the 3rd day, I installed Parallel Desktop with Windows XP loaded with MS Office and Visual (C# and Web Developer) Express Studio 2005. By the way, I'm a long time FreeBSD users and I have a machine with XP dual boot + Ubuntu (now Ubuntu on the other hand is one piece of distribution... respect..!) Microsoft is not dead. They're still up and running. They're just not visible in your path Paul. They're doing other things that do not interfere with your Web 2.0 posse. One IPTV company gave a talk in my e-Business course a month ago, she sang praise for Microsoft because they have the most complete strategy in IPTV world. FYI, IPTV is better than YouTube. Let's admit it, people need to hear new information, new gossips, new products and new toys. But only time will tell if these new stuffs can replace Microsoft. The other thing is, if Desktop is dead, why am I keep hearing news about Slingshots, Apollo and WPF/E ? Maybe Microsoft knows how broken the WWW is and they prefer not to build their interest around it (other than just to be another big player next to Yahoo! and Google because they have pride and they want to be acknowledged that they still can be a big player in any field..) MS isn't dead yet, not until they stop creating software/hardware and move to the business/consulting field. It's true that they lost the "touch" and that they lost in understanding their customer, but they're not as bad as you envisioned. Of course you're writing this essay to fire up these hotshots or web 2.0 wannabes to quit their jobs and to forget applying for big companies and make a web2.0 thing for YCombinator (^_^)
  • 20y ago
• juwo 20y ago
  Microsoft died shortly before Bill Gates became a saint. Anyone who knows religion knows that you become a saint only when you die. - Anil Philip
• schoudha 20y ago
  Microsoft is still and will likely continue to be the world's most profitable software company. OS X will not reach 20% global marketshare by the end of the decade and Goldman Sachs IBankers will still be punching away on MS Excel for the foreseeable future. What does it mean to be dead then? What I think Paul Graham is saying, and this is underscored by the notion of "being dangerous," is that Microsoft is no longer the place where new ideas and true innovation is going to come from. Startups are born from fresh ideas, and the companies that are dangerous to them are places like Google which seem to being designed to produce competitors to startups. Microsoft will continue to sell $50 OEM copies of Windows to Dell and licenses of Office but this is a business on the decline. Microsoft is Old-tech stuck in the era of desktop applications, closed development strategies, and the economics of software licensing. The financial effects of MS being dead are already showing some effect, MSFT has moved much since the dot-com boom, but it will take 5-10 years and continued blunders from MS to see some real damage.
  • amichail 20y ago
    Startups are the ones with fresh ideas because larger companies don't want to take the risks. Larger companies could later acquire those cutting-edge startups when it is more apparent that their ideas are good ones.
    • alive88 20y ago
      I wouldn't discount large company innovation, but certainly acquisition becomes part of their innovation model.
  • pg 20y ago
    Microsoft was never the place new ideas and true innovation came from. But they did once have the power to shut down people who had them. They no longer do; that's what's changed.
    • jellerbee 20y ago
      Can you explain the power Microsoft had to shut down people where "true innovation" came from? and who or what stopped them from doing this? What is the difference between "true innovation" and -- I don't even know how to ask this exactly -- "untrue innovation"?
• Benja 20y ago
  I guess I'm in the younger half, because on reflection, I realize that not only do I agree, but that this is old news to me. I'm not complaining, though -- this article made me realize something I didn't know consciously. A lot of commenters here seem to argue that Microsoft still has the vast majority of desktop installations, and that this isn't likely to go away soon. I agree (I don't like it, but I think it's true). But I also agree that Microsoft isn't a threat any more, like it used to be. And, on reflection, I agree that it is web apps that are making the difference. I don't think that Word or Photoshop moving online is what really makes the difference, though. Every hoary Windows competitor has had a word processor and an image editor. (Sure, they didn't match Word feature-for-feature; does Writely?) But I believe a major reason that prevented people from switching has been the long tail of applications: "It doesn't have any accounting software for plumbers!" The feeling that Microsoft had a secure monopoly came from the fact that these long-tail programs were all written for Windows, because that was what was economic for its developers. Word and Photoshop always had a Mac version. Accounting for Plumbers never did. Now, these applications live on the Web. And while the people using them still might use Windows, it doesn't matter; it makes Microsoft money, but it doesn't buy them any leverage.
  • stolennomen 20y ago
    yes.
  • hello_moto 20y ago
    I think this is a little bit ironic. One of Paul's YCombinator companies, Loopt.com is using Microsoft/IIS 6.0 and Paul has been touting them to be one of the best of his startup investments. I agree with you on this one Paul, Loopt.com is the only one that is actually doing something real. Another startup that just caught Techcrunch attention (and apparently got financed because the company has a real business model) is Gigya (http://www.gigya.com/) http://www.gigya.com/) and they, too, are using Microsoft/IIS 6.0. I'm not saying that there's a strong correlation between Microsoft and your success rate, but I just find it ironic. The rest startups seem to not to have their business models and hoping for a buyout. Actually that includes Reddit as well. If you read Aaron's blog and see how they're desperate to get a "deal" from PG. Note: I assume Microsoft/IIS 6.0 = ASP.NET
• volida 20y ago
  I think Microsoft is playing it safe. And don't forget everyone, that MSN Messenger is being used by as much x20 times the users of Facebook. Microsoft did the smartest acquisition in 1997 when they bought Hotmail and caught the train. What would it stop them from doing that again? I don't know. And what if they took PG's advice and their new move was his suggestion to buy all new startups?! They introduced VS.Net and again they were able to provide services to the enterprise. Then it killed the Sony Playstation. And to everyone who missed the point, I think thats what PG means with dead. They are not direct threat to someone starting-up --because their products are on the market which is the platform for accessing web services (Windows and IE), which web services is the new trend to bringing something of value to users), as much as Google is (because web services is their essential market) or another startup doing something similar. I think MS will really worry when mobile devices become your desktop...But they seem to be catching up there too... Maybe that explains acquiring Tellme for 800 million few weeks ago... But does anybody even remembers MS's attempt to make a video sharing site. Whats was its name? I can't even remember...
  • theoutlander 20y ago
    Soapbox
• papersmith 20y ago
  I think despite Steve Ballmer's fanaticism, Microsoft knows its dying. They're already diversifying into safer industries like enterprise, gaming, and media. These are not hostile takeovers like in the old days, they're major moves trying to position MS as a major player in the respective fields. I think the MS identity well remain, but it will become a much more diluted entity, with branches each going its separate way.
  • abstractbill 20y ago
    Media isn't a safe industry. Not for very long at least.
• danw 20y ago
• TrueOrient 20y ago
  To paraphrase how management guru Peter Drucker put it "Growth that increases productivity is healthy, growth without an increase in productivity is fat, and growth that decreases productivity is cancer...." Lately, MS has been coming up with nothing but Bloatware. To be productive these days, all I need is a Live CD of Linux Puppy and connect to the net to access all the online applications I need for work.... I store all my files online and access them from anywhere in the world.... Once I am on the net, it matters little if I use OSX, Windows or Linux. It is only a matter of time before Web based applications will be as good as desktop applications....
• aston 20y ago
  I disagree with the general sentiment of the article (mostly the hyperbole), but one quote hit the nail on the head: "They're in a different world." There's no question that Microsoft is still dominant in the areas they care about, and because of that dominance they're likely to stay there. At this point, I think people understand that dominance intuitively and so don't really even try to beat Microsoft, especially since the web-as-a-platform thing is looking so exciting.
• dfranke 20y ago
  The link to 'The Other Road Ahead' is broken. Edit: looks fixed now.
• jmpeters 20y ago
  I agree with the article in general, but you lost some credibility by equating Snipshot to Photoshop. I realize that you have an investment to promote, but please.
  • pg 20y ago
    You missed the point. I was using it as an example of how the canonical application that's hard to make web-basd (and which I used as an example thereof in "The Other Road Ahead") can be made web-based. Adobe's making a web-based image editor themselves, but I can't link to that because the only trace of it so far are their FUD press releases.
  • dpapathanasiou 20y ago
    That's exactly what made the Graham essays (pre-YC) so compelling: this wasn't someone with a vested interest, just an astute observer making comments few others were. Blurring that line is a mistake.
  • raganwald 20y ago
    If PG has something worthwhile to say, it is true whether he has a vested interested in the truth or not. If it is false, it can be debunked without questioning his motives. Here is what I have observed about people. In general, people with vested interests do not lie. What they do is pick and choose the truths they want to share. So someone with an investment in an online photo editor might say that "people are now writing online photo editing applications," but is unlikely to say, "that are faster and have more features than Photoshop." Is that bad? Of course not. There are this other group of people with no alleged interest in the subject. They are called journalists. And you know what? My observation is that they are much less reliable than peopel with a "vested interest."
• BobG 20y ago
  Being nearly 50years old, what frightens me about MS is that they think they can sell an OS which they can remotely turn off without out a court warrant and then its up to you if your business hasn't gone bankrupt to sue them . This just shows complete and utter contempt for their customers.Which will do for them in the long run.My next box will be linux. Maybe the apple setup etc looks attractive to the younger generation but its only superficial. They have their own history of arrogant greed too. Bob G
  • erdos2 20y ago
    I recently acquired a Mac Book Pro. There was precisely one Windows program I wanted to run on it (SuperMemo) under Parallels, which received good reviews. Rather than wait to purchase a copy of Windows from the local CompUSA, I used an OEM copy of Windows from a defenestrated a DELL box (I replaced Windows with Debian). After installing XP as a guest OS under Parallels, I activated XP online by purchasing a product key through the Genuine Advantage program. But that wasn't good enough for Microsoft. Microsoft informed me in their emailed order acknowledgment that I was some kind of felon: "To convert your counterfeit Windows XP software to a genuine copy of Windows XP using the new Product Key, you will need to download and run the Windows Product Key Update Tool on the same computer you used to purchase the electronic license for Windows XP." The following week I received in the mail a Windows Genuine Advantage Kit for Windows XP Professional; it contained a letter asserting that I had "submitted a counterfeit report" with my order, and that this report would be "treated as confidential." Moreover, "...Microsoft's anti-piracy team investigates each and every lead we receive. Since investigations are ongoing and extremely confidential, we are unable to provide you with the status of the particular lead you have submitted. The length of time to bring about enforcements varies depending on the nature of a particular investigation." Hateful monsters! Frightful miscreants! I suppose I deserve this for having anything to do with Windows.
    • grauenwolf 20y ago
      Technically it isn't a legit copy of Windows. OEM versions are usually tied to the computer they are originally sold with. Personally I don't think it is fair, but that's how licensing works under a monopoly. Jonathan Allen
• BitGeek 20y ago
  I realized Microsoft was dead in early January 2007 when it occured to me that vista was about to come out and I didn't see anyone who really cared. Of course now that Vista has failed to garner any real attention, this view is confirmed. Further, I think that even on the desktop things are going to change and fast. I don't think people realize just how well Apple is doing. Their Mac sales are up something like %50, but they havent' really experienced network effects yet... as MS fails to come up with anything inspiring, PC owners are going to try switching in larger and larger numbers. We aren't yet seeing the watershet that this is yet-- but the Mac has moved from the margins to a viable maisntream possibility.... and as PCs bought between 2004-2006 come up for replacement, a huge number of those machines will be replaced with Macs. It was only in 2006 that people outside the software and web industry really started to see the Mac as a viable alternative. Personally, I am starting to feel a bit odd, since suddenly there are all these new Mac users. When the Mac becomes mainstream, I'll lose the comfortable non-conformity I've enjoyed since 1988.
• brad 20y ago
  This is a very thought provoking essay. Very forward thinking. I agree with many of the things that you say, but the fact of the matter is that much of the economy - domestic and global - runs in a Windows environment. Most consumers still run Windows. Am I missing the point? Perhaps. I suppose it is true that anybody who takes personal computing seriously is running Firefox and Thunderbird and Google Desktop on Windows. In that sense, yeah Windows is dead. Personally, I use Macs, so I am well insulated from Microsoft. However, they are alive and well if only because of the Office suite. If I send a an OpenDocument file to ten of my friends, they won't be able to open it. If I send a Word file, everybody can open it. The point is, Microsoft is still quite relevant today. Although, I can see your points and would fully agree that free Linux could easily supplant Windows as a desktop environment (to run your stated Web 2.0 apps) or Macs. I applaud your essay; you take some interesting positions and provide some profound insight. Very interesting. Brad Engelmann.
• gabrielroth 20y ago
  Wanted to point out a typo. You have: "Thanks to OSX, Apple has come back from the dead in a way that is extremely rare technology." I think that should be "extremely rare IN technology."
  • celoyd 20y ago
    And s/OSX/OS X/
• gknauth 20y ago
  Is IBM dead? Maybe Microsoft is just another IBM. In 30 years, they may even be backing free software.
  • william42 20y ago
    IBM basically did what PG says MS should do. They started concentrating on PCs.
• andreyf 20y ago
• apansari 20y ago
  Paul, excellent article. I have two additional reasons behind why Microsoft is "dead." Reason (5): Steve Ballmer took over from Bill Gates as CEO in Jan 2000. Chief Sales Guy takes over from Chief Egghead and the company stops building products for its real users. Reason (6): Web 1.0 hiring. Microsoft hired a huge number of people in 1998-2001, people who were too stupid or incompetent to get a job pretty much anywhere else. The good people all went to web startups then. This was the first crack in Microsoft's "we have the world's best people" armor. B players hire C players, and it goes downhill from there.
  • projectileboy 20y ago
    I agree strongly with reason (5) - whatever anyone thinks about Bill Gates, Microsoft was clearly a different company when Mr. Gates was at the helm.
  • jjrs 20y ago
    It's true...what bright, iconoclastic young thinker applies for a job at microsoft these days? It's a stuffy drone corporate gig, and those are the people that'll gravitate to it.
    • Elfan 20y ago
      Maybe there arn't any wizardly hackers applying for a job at Microsoft , but there are smart people interested in a steady pay check.
      • william42 20y ago
        ...most of whom are looking at Google now.
• chai 20y ago
  "As Google becomes more and more application-oriented, it will look more like MS. While MS is pushing itself to be more web-based, it is snapping up Google's market share as well and therefore more Google-ish. The clash of titans will definitely be interesting. The winner will rewrite the rule of future computing platforms, while the loser will be left in oblivion and soon forgotten." Full text here: http://not-your-cup-of-chai.blogspot.com/2007/03/distributed-vs-centralized-entities.html http://not-your-cup-of-chai.blogspot.com/2007/03/distributed-vs-centralized-entities.html
• Peter_G 20y ago
  Like an Oliver Stone movie, this entry is interesting and fun to read despite being entirely wrong in every major respect.
• jim-in-austin 20y ago
  I no longer consult but if I had a small business or non-profit as a client today I would: - Hook everyone up to a high speed connection. - Not worry about OS or platform as long as they could run Firefox or IE - Sign them up with Google Apps ( http://www.google.com/a/ http://www.google.com/a/ ) - Sign them up with a web-based accounting system such as ACCPAC Online, ePeachtree, Oracle Small Business Suite, etc if they do in-house accounting - Spend 45 minutes showing them how to admin the system via the web - Present my bill Of course Microsoft is dead.
  • fishcar22 19y ago
    Don't think that would work unless you intend to be out there on a weekly basis. We as IT people can get around any system but throw an average user in front of something they haven't seen before and they refuse to even try to learn. Also what I think most people are overlooking is that while you can run INFRASTRUCTURE services on any OS, those are services that everyone has. Most companies out there have some custom grown app that differentiates them. They use this app internally to do their specialized work on. These apps run almost exclusively on windows simply because it has not been worth it to develop them for the other operating systems. Everyone is trying to find a reason not to use Microsoft, but it is my opinion that if you take an objective look at the operating systems out there (right now) it is still the best OS. Do you think it is easier to find someone to support windows or do you think it is easier to find someone to support OS X? If you hire an employee, what are the odds that they will be familiar with Windows vs Linux? Do you have an existing investment in Windows? If so how long a ROI is there on scrapping your existing config for something new? What are the odds that the software that someone suggests to you will run on Windows vs running on Unix? Why would you want to limit your options to only those programs that have web front ends when you can have a rich selection of Desktop programs and web interface programs? Maybe in 10 years we will be at a point where Microsoft isn't in control but its also possible in 10 years that someone new will come on the scene and own everyone. While different can be good, different for the sake of different is not usually worth it. Also as a side note: Google Apps may be a killer in about 5 years but right now its pretty infantile. I've really tried to use it but honestly OpenOffice or Microsoft Office as so much better its not even funny.
• cweekly 20y ago
  "[E]ventually the open source world triumphed, in the form of Javascript libraries that grew over the brokenness of Explorer the way a tree grows over barbed wire." $ {applause} This is a beautiful simile, one I will repeat to others. Also (I'm 32) this feels like old news but hearing it put so succinctly by you, well, it puts a big ol grin on my face. =D Thanks, Paul -- and keep it up!
• nicodaemos 20y ago
  Just two days ago I wrote an article about web server stats and noticed that a) Microsoft is almost nonexistent amongst the geek programming community and b) that contrary to Netcraft's numbers, Microsoft servers are in a small minority of sites frequented by geeks like myself. http://hitesh-jasani.blogspot.com/2007/04/web-server-stats.html http://hitesh-jasani.blogspot.com/2007/04/web-server-stats.html
• grauenwolf 20y ago
  Have you taken a look at their developer toolkit? ASP.NET is a really strong player in the web, and ATLAS has given them serious AJAX support. It is still pretty buggy now, but has the promise of the same easy drag and drop development that revolutionized Windows developement. Or XNA? The next generation of game deveopers are already cutting their teeth on C# and XBox. Or Robotics Studio? They are positioning themselves to corner the OS market for Robotics the same way they did for PCs back in the 80s. As long as Microsoft has the hearts and minds of millions of developers, they aren't dead.
• bartsimpson007 20y ago
  Paul, I have great respect for you. But I think you contradit yourself a bit when you say this "..everyone can see the desktop is over. It now seems inevitable that applications will live on the web—not just email, but everything, right up to Photoshop". That by itself is a accuate and I can agree with. But you go on to rant about how Apple has put MS on the run and how you fund people that use Mac etc etc. Don't you consider Apple a desktop too??
  • jjrs 20y ago
    He basically said that all they have is the desktop...but that even that market is getting chewed away too. microsoft can be getting hit by web apps and competing desktops simultaneously...no contradiction there. He just chose to choose one as a bigger factor than the other, that's all.
    • bartsimpson007 20y ago
      To rephrase, does Paul suggest that Apple is dead as well? If not, how are they going to survive according to paul in the Google Apps/Web 2.0 Era?
• joeschmoe 20y ago
  "Their victory is so complete that I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops." I love "essays" where someone has experience from the last few years and says stupid things like this. "I'm surprised" when I see people using laptops their companies buy...and they run windows? That's just naive and foolish to say. Yes, Apple is cool, but that's like me saying I'm surprised when I DON'T see a laptop running Linux. Hey, I go to little conferences too, and everyone is using a Linux laptop. See how dumb it sounds? Now think that Linux and Mac have close to the same market share.
• joeschmoe 20y ago
  Secondly, I believe that this "essay" sounds young, and a bit smarmy. Like a first-year sophomoric newbie would write, trying to sound like they are so surprised that the students in dorm 13 haven't been going to the new dining hall, because everyone knows it's the best.
• joeschmoe 20y ago
  I think this is an essay for people who want to be MS is dead, but it just ain't true.
• rrameshp 20y ago
  When articles like this stop appearing on the web only then can one assume that Microsoft is dead. The barometer of a Organizations success can be gauged by the number of enemies they have.
• dietzsignals 20y ago
  old news.
• aprocrastinator 20y ago
  It's not dead, just a paper tiger. The final nail in the coffin will come with Web 3.0/4.0 when the operating system will be accessed on the web in the same way apps are now and the need for a system like Vista or OSX will go the of the dinosaurs.
• danielha 20y ago
  They are so enormous that they stifle themselves. Sometimes Microsoft seems to put out something, from some division, that makes one think: "Hey, this is a good move -- maybe they're starting to get it." But before one can utter those words, another of Microsoft's many appendages does something to completely nullify those sentiments. That "appendage" is usually the head itself. Microsoft often acquires a good thing (many times a catchup move) but this thing only stays good for a short time. When integration is complete, it's a single bumbling Microsoft entity once again.
  • jjrs 20y ago
    what are some examples of that?
    • mrpostmaster 20y ago
      Anything that Microsoft perceives itself to be bad at, and wants to be better at. 1) xbox (though, at this point it has not really been adsorbed back in yet) 2) IE 3) MS Office 4) MS Windows 5) MS-DOS 6) Hotmail
• flarosa 20y ago
  Microsoft used to be my hero, ever since the day I turned on my first TRS-80 and saw the Microsoft Basic copyright notice. For 20 years Microsoft was my whole world. MS-DOS, old Windows, new Windows. DLLs, ODBC, IIS, and all the rest of it. Keeping up with Microsoft was a chore. I'd learn to program DLLs, and by the time I was good at it, they were pushing Active X. Or I'd learn to use named pipes, only to find that everyone was using sockets. Everything was a confusing mismash of competing APIs, old code, new code, multiple ways of doing the same thing with no good explanation. Finding help in MSDN was a nightmare. Sometimes they'd just repackage or rebrand the same technology for no other reason than to confuse you. DNA? What the hell was that? One day my boss asked me to do a project in Java. What an eye-opener. Everything made sense. Everything I needed was there, but without tons of redundant, obsolete material. Today I run Linux servers, program in Java, deploy on JBoss with MySQL databases. I ditched Visual Studio in favor of Eclipse. I love working with this stuff. I feel truly sorry for people who are forced to limit themselves to Microsoft technology.
  • frobot 20y ago
    Java used to be my hero, ever since the day I learned it would manage memory for me, while still scaling to the heights demanded by the enterprise. For 10 years, Java was my whole world. Servlets, old EJB, new EJB, JSP, JDBC, Spring, Hibernate, JSF, and all the rest of it. Keeping up with enterprise Java was a chore. I'd learn to program EJB 1 and by the time I finally figured it out, they were pushing EJB 2. Or I'd learn Entity Beans or Struts, only to find nobody was using it anymore. Everything was a confusing mismash of competing APIs, old code, new code, multiple, dogmatic ways of doing the same thing with no good explanation. Finding help with this J2EE crap was a nightmare. Somtimes they'd just repackage or rebrand the same technology for no good reason. Hibernate? EJB3? J2EE? JEE 5? WTF? One day, in spite of my boss's mandate that we were strictly a Java shop, I started to rewrite a struggling project in Ruby on Rails. What an eye-opener. What took months and 5 people now took days and 1 person. Everything I needed was there, but without tons of redundant, repetitive lines of boilerplate code and XML -- and without endless compile-deploy-restart cycles. Today I run Linux servers, program in Ruby, have abandoned JBoss, and use Apache and Mongrel with MySQL databases. I ditched Eclipse in favor of TextMate. I love working with this stuff. I feel truly sorry for people wo are forced to limit themselves to Java technology. (Sorry for the too-obvious, too-easy parody. But I couldn't help myself -- it was the natural response to someone praising the virtues of Java during a discussion about a dying, irrelevant company.)
• theoutlander 20y ago
  Windows has its quirks, but it is still the OS regular users choose. Visual Studio (THE BEST PRODUCT FROM MSFT!) beats everything out there! Although, my startup is not using ANY Microsoft technology, I am using Windows to code! Unix is GREAT for server-side....terrible for client-side and Windows is GREAT for client-side, but terrible on server-side! Google owns search but they are losing focus, just like MSFT. Remember that if it weren't for MSFT, Apple wouldn't have taken the PC market too far .... this is just the beginning of the IT revolution! IBM - MSFT - GOOGLE - ADOBE - WHO'S NEXT? They are all gonna slow down at some point.... I am not afraid of Google... Even if a company is a mammoth, it HAS its limitations!!!
  • BrandonM 20y ago
    If you think that Unix is terrible for client-side, then I don't think you've been working in Linux for long. How about the ability to install any of 20,000 programs from a convenient package/portage/rpm directory for free in seconds? How about updating every single program on your computer, including the OS, and recompiling everything, with one command? And as for programming, whenever I'm working in Visual Studio, I feel like I'm working in Notepad. Honestly, if you take the time to learn the keybindings for vi or emacs (I won't say which, I use both :-), you will find that a much more lightweight program can manage projects just as well, and you can code many times faster. Honestly, it's hard to get away from what you're used to, but immerse yourself in a non-Microsoft environment for a few months (I've been using Unix heavily for less than a year), and you'll realize that Microsoft is the one with the bad interfaces. For years they have been catering to the lowest common denominator. The people who want true control over what they are doing use or write an open source program.
    • theoutlander 20y ago
      I do like the ability to install on demand! Why is Windows leading client-side? Because it is easy! I am speaking from an average users perspective. Not us! I have used VI and I love it! Visual Studio is NOT like notepad. I'm sorry but AFAIK, VI or Emacs cannot provide intellisense can it? I have used both environments for development and based on my productivity, I concluded that Windows is a better environment for ME. Ultimately, it is about getting the job done FAST and using what works for you. I have used freeBSD and it is definitely STABLE, but really not something I would like to sit and develop on. Think about the millions of END-USERS??? Windows is really the solution for them... at least for now. Although Windows has its issues, I think Microsoft has improved its product in many ways. Do you realize how hard of a problem it is to solve, making the OS secure and user-friendly at the same time? I like Windows, Redhat and freeBSD... I wish Windows stayed away from the Server market and likewise Redhat stayed away from the client!
• bobsil1 20y ago
  Remind me which Web-based apps make money again?
  • pg 20y ago
    The very first one did.
• BrandonM 20y ago
  I agree that Microsoft is on the decline, but I disagree that web applications will totally replace the desktop. It's still way too convenient to have hundreds of programs a mouse-click away, and to be able to fire up 50 of them at once on new hardware without any lag. It is true, however, that that desktop needn't be Windows anymore. I agree that OS X has been partly responsible for converting people away from Windows, but equally responsible is a growing Linux community. Since Linux came out, it has been slowly gaining some of Microsoft's desktop market share, especially since Gnome and KDE have gotten more polished and Ubuntu made its number 1 bug Microsoft. I was a bit disappointed to see no mention of open source software, because it is not Google Docs that is replacing MS Office, but Open Office. GIMP has been slowly replacing Photoshop since it came out, not Snipshot. Likewise with Firefox overtaking Internet Explorer, Thunderbird being the first to stand in for Outlook, and gcc has been the compiler of choice for years. In summary, I agree that Microsoft is on the decline and that we are seeing software shift to the Internet, but I never think the desktop will go away. The number of desktops running Windows and other Microsoft software, however, is going to continue to decline. It's one thing to offer free software on the Internet alongside Google ads, it's another entirely to be able to install entirely free, ad-free software with no strings attached, which is an opportunity that the open source community has afforded us.
• stevecla 20y ago
  Micrsoft is very much alive and though Paul makes some great observations about the challenges that lie ahead this discussion seems to be centred on people who want Microsoft to be dead and why Microsoft is such a threat. That's the real challenge...changing years of negative sentiment. That's what I care about
• slk 20y ago
  Nice article! Quick question: by Nero, do you mean the Roman emperor, or the CD/DVD burning software?
• jmd 20y ago
  Obvious, but necessary. The most obvious of ideas are often the hardest to articulate. Google seems destined to become the world's most valuable corporation[1]. Who wants to be Pepsi? To compete with Google, copy Google's game plan. Focus on search. Evolve to AI.[2] (An AI is something that can give me a useful answer to my question.) Organize the world's information. Everything else Google does is cover fire.[3] What I'm really asking is, why can't I name a single pure play search company other than Google? [1] Besides oil. [2] http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dyson05/dyson05_index.html http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dyson05/dyson05_index.html [3] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html
• shiv 20y ago
  There have been multiple instances when the same grand declarations have been made and Microsoft has only survived and remain dominant.This is just the next cycle of competition. Microsoft is paranoid enough and this article makes the assumption that they have blinders on and while the move to web etc is happening people at Microsoft are twiddling their thumbs and will say please come and take our business away. Maybe they are in a good position to take advantage of these new paradigms. Of course there is a fight out there but declaring death is premature, significantly challenged, yes.
• jjrs 20y ago
  Excellent post. Not only did you nail the growing feeling that Microsoft is gradually becoming irrelevant, but you gave the best explanation as to why that I've seen anywhere. I think another reason is that younger people are more computer literate and more open to new OS's and software. Mom and Dad were intimidated by computers and just wanted the simplest, most common software (microsoft/IBM), which they'd learned to use at work.
• juwo 20y ago
  Here is a piece I wrote: Java has harmed Unix but helped Windows win http://juwo.blogspot.com/2006/11/flatface-musings-java-has-harmed-unix.html http://juwo.blogspot.com/2006/11/flatface-musings-java-has-harmed-unix.html
• polibius 20y ago
  I agree with you: Microsoft is dead, long ago. However you fail to note that another famous victim of Google, Javascript and broadband is Apple itself. In fact desktop software in general is dead. Word processing, spreadsheets, e-mail, image editing, project management and many other traditional desktop killer-apps are now offered for free on the web. Let's face it: only professional graphic designers and architects really need the power of Adobe Creative Suite or Autodesk Autocad and, as a consequence, a Windows or Apple machine. How people are coping with this new reality? There are, in my view, two different attitudes. People more sensitive to hype are buying expensive Apple laptops even when they are simply overkill for their real needs. Programmers buying Apple laptops just to run Textmate are similar to fashion victims buying the latest Gucci handbag. Other people are more rational and choose cheap but sound Linux boxes (especially the Ubuntu flavor). I think 90% of computer users can live with Ubuntu without any problem. Of course the desktop software libraries for Linux are very meagre compared to Microsoft and Apple's universes but we've just stated that desktop software is dead: web apps' user experience is the same on every platform. The operating system really doesn't matter. Don't you have other needs to satisfie instead of buying an expensive and useless Apple fashion laptop? Buy a cheap laptop, install Linux and enjoy your life! And what about the business side of the moon? What will happen when companies will suddenly discover they don't longer need desktop software? Companies are more cost-conscious and I assume they will migrate to Linux en masse.
• fuzzyman 20y ago
  I think the death of the desktop is much exaggerated. AJAX is better than the last generation of web-apps, but the browser still basically sucks as a platform. Latency is a bitch. :-)
  • Elfan 20y ago
    But is it unsucky enough in a "worse is better" sort of way?
    • knewter 20y ago
      There are, for me, quite a few reasons it's unsucky enough in a 'better is better' sort of way these days. I use Foxmarks to synchronize my bookmarks, and I keep a detailed bookmarks toolbar folder categorized into tons of nested folders. Thousands of bookmarks by now I'm sure. I also use deskbar so I can just start typing the title of one of my bookmarks to launch it. This is far more intuitive for me than any previous way of running web applications, and the level of organization and interoperability I've achieved between all the apps I use (most of which have some form of live collaboration built in these days) makes any computer I'm ever at just feel right. I feel there's money (or fame, failing that) to be made in a competitor to or addition to foxmarks that allows feeds of bookmarks to be easily subscribed to, so I could distribute a bunch of links in structured format to a development team, say, right in their web browser, that they could all collaborate on. Would take very little effort, and at least I myself could see immediate benefit.
    • fuzzyman 20y ago
      How many developers of startups do you know who actually use a browser based IDE ? There are a couple and they only suck a bit, but they don't compare to the desktop ones. I don't use a browser based text editor when I want to make a quick note. Actually a couple of my friends do with google docs - but not too many. For the apps I use everyday, the browser sucks. It's not just latency, although this is a big contributor to why web apps feel sucky and clunky, but the browser just isn't a very good platform for rich applciations. The google integration between their applications is very good, and getting better, but it isn't enough to make me forget that the interface sucks...
• niklas72 20y ago
  My problem with this essay is that it could just as well have been written in 1985, 1990, 1995 or 2000. Microsoft has always been slow in responding to new threats. 1985: Windows 1.0 was a totally insufficient response to the Macintosh. There were plenty of other Window Managers too, all superior (oops, not Topview, now that was an inferior product). Lotus and Borland is going to kill Microsoft with superior applications. 1990: Microsoft put out Windows 3.0. Still DOS inside. ACE consortium wants to kill Microsoft with Motif. 1995: Netscape is the latest presumptive Microsoft killer, IE is an inferior product. Sun unveils Java, purported Microsoft killer. Windows 95 looks nice, still very much DOS at heart. Constant refrain during the latter 90's: Desktop Linux is going to kill Microsoft... 2000- The Web/Sony is going to kill Microsoft. And it's not like the cool kids ran Microsoft products in 1990 or 1995 either. The tastes of an elite doesn't necessarily reflect the future of the broader market.As long as Apple won't let you run OSX on non-Apple hardware it can't be anything but a niche product. Sure, Microsoft is vulnerable, but so is Google or Apple or any other company in this business. I don't know why Microsoft are underestimated so often, it might be that we root so much for the underdog that we fail to see what the big meanies strengths are.
  • mrpostmaster 20y ago
    No, he is not saying microsoft is vulnerable, but that no one fears microsoft any more. In the past, if you were trying to get VC money, one of the questions they would ask you is - why should I fund you? Can't Microsoft do this? That question is not asked today, even as a few years back. I was trying to get a patch management company going, and that 8 or so VCs I met didn't even asked if this is something Microsoft would get into. And from what I understand, today's questions are more along the lines of - how can you beat google. -Tai
• artsnooze 20y ago
• rsheridan6 20y ago
  I wouldn't count them out just yet. It's true that they can't kill a web 2.0 businesses like youtube the way they could kill desktop-based competitors in the past, but don't forget that the browser itself is a desktop-based app. If I controlled MS, I would try to develop a better platform for web apps than Firefox (which is definitely possible). I'd use patent-encumbered APIs, which I would share while trying to build market share, and then force my competitors to stop using once they were entrenched. Maybe somebody smarter than me could come up with a better idea, but the point is that it's probably still possible for them to leverage their OS near-monopoly into a web near-monopoly. It would have been far easier for them if they had started earlier. Firefox would have been easy to kill 3 or 4 years ago. But MSFT has so much money and such a large installed base that they can get away with a lot of screw ups before they really cease to be a threat. I agree that, for the time being, entrepreneurs don't really have to worry about MS. But they're not really dead. They're just comatose.
• gwint 20y ago
  Photoshop itself will soon have an online version: http://news.com.com/2100-7345_3-6163015.html http://news.com.com/2100-7345_3-6163015.html
• atanas 20y ago
  It is a cultural shift that will bury Microsoft. Much like the Walmart distribution deal killed Levi's as a brand.
• morlock_man 20y ago
  Microsoft isn't dead. They're still killing startups. There was a perfect DRM model evolving that would have killed Major Record labels while saving the local music stores... and Microsoft killed it with Windows Media Player updates and Vista. What's sad is that now they've fallen below everyone's radar. Which makes it that much easier to get away with shit like this.
• pyite 20y ago
  I somewhat agree with you. However, it is obvious that hardware vendors still fear Microsoft. The day that they stop fearing Microsoft is the day that just about every PC will have the option of either Windows or Linux. Last time a company tried something like this was IBM in the mid-90's and Microsoft made quite an example of them by increasing their annual Windows licensing charge by $200 million.
• marksashton 20y ago
  It's intersting that you highlight GMAIL as the point where Google became scary. If anthing, GMAIL is another example of how Google's efforts outside of Search have largely failed...at least by the standard they set with Search. I used tried to find the latest marketshare numbers using Google but could't find anything current :) but as of the middle of last year they had about 2% of the Web mail market. Hmmm... Huge success? I think their only real succcess outside of Search is mapping but even there they're trailing Microsoft (local.live.com) in innovation. Check out the 45 degree angle photos on local.live.com if you don't believe me.
  • dougo 20y ago
    2% is not bad for a product that's still "beta".
    • marksashton 20y ago
      LOL! Let's see...three years of beta... Talk about plausible deniability. Hey, we can't vouch for the quality. It's only beta! :)
• pablos 20y ago
  Nice text. Did you take your medicines today ?
• justified 20y ago
  Please let's continue not to care about Mikrosopht (sorry, I don't recall the correct spelling, and I'm no slave of internet search either, but to me it sounds much antique, so I hope my guess is right...). Instead, people of worth, let's help pushing stuff like this: http://www.cs.stevens.edu/~dlong/software/kamen/index.php http://www.cs.stevens.edu/~dlong/software/kamen/index.php (Note that I'm not the author, just heard of it recently.)
• mrpostmaster 20y ago
  Well, you said Apple's board made a mistake - however, I think it was a necessary move. If you think about all the great movements in the history of mankind, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad, Moses, etc, all of them had to be kicked out, suffer in the desert, receive enlightenment/burning bushes/next/pixar and then come on back as the conquering hero. Would Jobs be as good as he is now, if he didn't do Next and Pixar? Maybe, maybe not. -Tai
• fryke 20y ago
  old news. (just wanted to be young again.)
• teddlesruss 20y ago
  dunno which place you pulled the Mac/Linux observation from but I can assure you that finally Microshaft are actually getting it right, and company IT departments are finally realising that TCO and facilities is tipped in MS's favour. I would thus say that your observation comes from clique formation, and perhaps doesn't reflect the overall industry. I freelance IT for organisations which go all the way from accountancy firms, to car sales chains, market chains, Art and Commercial offices, and realtime tracking/monitoring of heavy equipment. Out of all those (and there are often several under each heading,)I visit one Citrix office but they are going to Terminal Server ASAP. One company is busily switching from OSS server structures to Windows 2003 Servers. Cannot argue with it - MS often comes out cheaper, there is definitely more skill in the arena than there is skill in the Linux / OSX area, and tens of thousands of users still want a cute Window Start button. Out of some 20 businesses I do on demand IT for, one - only one - is a Mac shop, and a shambles it is too. They are graphics artists. One shop has custom boxes at the mineface talking to Windows 2003 Servers back at the office. One uses their own proprietary Application between mobile trucks and huge Wintel servers. The other 18 are MS shops doing everything from running fish markets all over town on RDP links, to monitoring, to aerial surveying, to good old accountancy under a wall to wall Windows environment. I see Linux boxes as routers and firewalls, Macs as the liberal arts students' foolproof workstation. Everyone I work for who is serious, runs Wintel machines. And I work across a wide sector of a fairly large city.
  • linuxiac 20y ago
    You have been infected with the disease of Microsoft, rose colored glasses, greed in the marketplace, tunnel vision... Wake up and shake off the shackles of corporate greed! Gnu/Linux processes upto 50X faster, runs on any platform, DEC Alpha to Sparc. Why else is Microsoft using 'Nix in front of all servers, on all Redmond networks, for all routers (Aruba leased routers are on all MS nets), and etc.? Learn the new revenue streams, or go bankrupt with them.
• rickt287 20y ago
  MS isn't dead. People aren't afraid, but have accepted the reality of them being who they are. Just like oppressive governments; eventually they beat you down so much that you stop caring and just accept it.The fact that articles still bash them proves who is top dog. To quote a famous line, "...we're better than you" "...it doesn't matter..." RT
• poopstech 20y ago
  Nice "Essay". I also bet that you dream in complete Eastman Color as well, right? MS is to big - too powerful and has it's hands in too many things to simply "die"! I read somewhere that if MS decided to pay off all the share holders and close its doors tomorrow, may western governments have to scramble to hire all the MS staff just to maintain the status quoi! As I guessed - you do dream in color... PooPsTech Sr. Software Eng.
• MikeLevin 20y ago
  Yeah, the reason this is going to take so long to shake out is that there can be only one dominant platform. And Microsoft is it. The Web interface even with Ajax is still kludgey in comparison. And things like Apollo from Adobe will take a long time to reach critical mass. The only thing I see chaniging the platform are endeavors like Nick Negroponte's one laptop per child (OLPC), which will force down hardware costs until it's eventually completely off-set by advertising. When PCs are free, a major platform shift can occur. Steve tried to get OSX on OLPC and was rebuffed by Nick, from what I hear.
• blabla 20y ago
  Hahahahaha. What are you trying to do? Apply the John Dvorak method to Microsoft? I can't seem to find any other way to account for that accumulation of the absurdest possible statements that this "essay" essentially is. BTW: I suppose I am in the younger half.
  • blabla 20y ago
    http://tinyurl.com/2kwrbo http://tinyurl.com/2kwrbo
• wanderson 20y ago
  Your story maybe correct, but I would not bet on majority of Americans supporting the theory, simply because Microsoft "remains" the largest, independent software company. I will laugh beforehand at all the comments from Microsoft supporters, shills and apologists. They will inevitably content that because Microsoft products - Windows and Office have the "most market share" by far, they (automatically) are the best and bravest. Pretty sic thinking, but that which proliferates.
• wanderson 20y ago
  Your story maybe true, but probably unacceptable by most all the Microsoft supporters, shills and apologists, who content quite proudly that because Microsoft products, primarily Windows and Office have the "largest market share by far", the company is therefore the best, with the greatest products. Quite sick thinking really, but pervasive and illogical. I wonder if these same group think GM is the greatest car company compared to Honda, simply because of the disparate market share. Never mind the issues of quality, reliability, creativity or other important criteria.
• leoderja 20y ago
  Bill Gates a bigger hero that Alexander Magnus. HE is the way...
• mikev 20y ago
  You say: "Ironically, Microsoft unintentionally helped create Ajax. The x in Ajax is from the XMLHttpRequest object, which lets the browser communicate with the server in the background while displaying a page. (Originally the only way to communicate with the server was to ask for a new page.) XMLHttpRequest was created by Microsoft in the late 90s because they needed it for Outlook. What they didn't realize was that it would be useful to a lot of other people too—in fact, to anyone who wanted to make web apps work like desktop ones." I think that's slightly off -- I think the folks who designed XMLHttpRequest fully understood its general utility. I think they're thrilled that lots of really interesting apps are being built on top of it. I think the problem was that the people writing apps at Microsoft didn't realize you could now use this to write compelling web-based apps.
• jetforme 20y ago
  I think there's one more cause of death, tangentially related to "everyone can see the desktop is over." It is the reason Microsoft did so well in the first place: people will use seemingly arbitrarily bad software. Even with Ajax, the best web applications still fall far short of the best desktop applications. I guess even Microsoft underestimated users' ability (and willingness) to adapt to constrained or poorly-designed software, and thus use (relatively great) web software. As a born-and-raised Mac user, I still think web apps suck, and for that matter, most Mac apps suck. But the few gems out there are phenomenal (or at least, approach the standard I hold). I wish more apps worked as well.
• weblivz 20y ago
  They're are easy target and i had this discussion over drinks with some friend last night. I actually think their software in the last few years and what is coming through is getting great respect from hackers. Also, a few things to remember. 1. Search in only 10% done. 2. Pervasive devices are taking over as the key interface to systems. 3. Collaboration is the big wave on the web. 4. Privacy/Trust - things like google apps work for some data (and are a great addition) but add in trust and privacy in business and they're screwed. Open ID is thinking about identity, but there's a long way to go. For these reasons there is a long way to go before anyone can be considered alive or dead. I for one think Google will be overtaken by someone in the not too distant future as well. It may be a resurgent Microsoft - remember Netscape. Oh, the have an ace in their cards. Ray Ozzie is Chief Software Architect (a position Gates himself used to hold) and created probably the more powerful collaboration software in its time at Groove. He's been very quiet recently and his emergence may be their resurgence. Not everyone is going to want to create 5 minute web 2.0 software to get bought by Google - a big change will emerge as happened with Netscape and AltaVista. Stay tuned.
• wykthorr 20y ago
  Now that I read this I realize that I haven't been paying any attention to Microsoft lately and that is because they don't matter anymore. The clearest proof of their death is their failure to launch an improved operating system. Vista was a big failure and I think they are starting to realize it. I think this particular piece of software is going to kill them for good. (that being 6ft under) Though this process could take some time it has started and it's not going to stop. Bye Bye Microsoft. Hope not to see any lookalikes any time soon. Victor
• Skyhoper 20y ago
  Besides from talking about how young entrepreneurs like myself do not see Microsoft as a threat, a photo in the middle of the article links to my picture! http://pieceofpaper.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/all_macs_and_all_writing.jpg http://pieceofpaper.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/all_macs_and_all_writing.jpg I think I’m picking a pimple on my cheek
• rickygee 20y ago
  eh, I still find Windows 2000 perfectly adequate for everything I do - including reading your excellent essay. That said, VISTA may well be a coffin nail. R/G
• redbeard 20y ago
  I actually respected Paul Graham and linked to him in his article about starting a startup. Now I see he is basically not even serious enough to keep reading. What a dork.
• talkingtab 20y ago
  I agree with everything you said, but there is one crucial bit more. MS is like the Soviet economic model competing against the "free trade" model. One is adaptive and the other isn't. Here it is the collaborative, adaptive model of software development (y-combinator like) versus the large monolithic MS development culture. Which is why MS will just not come back ever. They may be able to use Ajax, or other technologies, but they will never be able to change their culture. Doing so would require them to repudiate Bill Gates , et al and they are not going to do that. We should thank them in a way, because rather than having to compete against a mob of dinosaurs, MS has killed the others off for us - Novell for example. Thanks Bill.
• rayteagarden 20y ago
  WOW! This is right on the money, the future of computing is getting even more interesting.
• gregshortdotcom 20y ago
  Your observation that Macs and Linux machines outnumber computers running Windows is either humorously incorrect, or an outright lie. I work at a newspaper and the only people using Macs are the graphic designers. The rest of us, the vast majority of the company, use Windows. You need look no further than any old web stats program to see who is online. (A quick look in Omniture at the stats for our newspaper web site shows that 74.4% of the operating systems are running Windows XP. Only 5.2% are using Macs. And just 3.9% are using other operating systems, i.e. Linux.) Or, for the less tech savvy, check the software shelves and see just how many programs support Macs. It's really too bad. Your essay is otherwise very well written. It's just not founded in fact.
• gregshortdotcom 20y ago
  Your observation that Macs and Linux machines outnumber computers running Windows is either humorously incorrect, or an outright lie. I work at a newspaper and the only people using Macs are the graphic designers. The rest of us, the vast majority of the company, use Windows. You need look no further than any old web stats program to see who is online. (A quick look in Omniture at the stats for our newspaper web site shows that 74.4% of the operating systems are running Windows XP. Only 5.2% are using Macs. And just 3.9% are using other operating systems, i.e. Linux.) Or, for the less tech savvy, check the software shelves and see just how many programs support Macs. It's really too bad. Your essay is otherwise very well written. It's just not founded in fact.
  • busy_beaver 20y ago
    "I work at a newspaper" Which is another dying industry, in case you hadn't noticed. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/business/media/26paper.html?ex=1176091200&en=870eff3de332e892&ei=5070 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/business/media/26paper.html?ex=1176091200&en=870eff3de332e892&ei=5070 http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8HFM6GOB&show_article=1 http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8HFM6GOB&show_article=1 http://www.journalism.org/node/797 http://www.journalism.org/node/797 I work at an R1 research institution. When I attend talks in EE and CS (i.e., the ones attended by the guys doing research for tomorrow's technology), I see essentially nothing but Linux and Mac notebooks. 3-4 years ago it was about 50-50 Linux and Windows, rarely a Mac. I don't think Graham is disputing that there are a lot of Windows machines out there (in fact, I seem to remember the article explicitly acknowledging this). He's talking about tomorrow, not today. I'll bet if someone had visited your newspaper 25 years ago they'd have seen CP/M or Wang systems.
• Wanderlust 20y ago
  old news
• sachman 20y ago
  You nailed it - I think it is a cultural and mindset issue and unless they change at the core they are never going to intimidate anyone nor be the powerhouse they were once. Here is an interesting piece that complements yours... http://republicofinternets.com/2007/03/17/is-microsoft-done/ http://republicofinternets.com/2007/03/17/is-microsoft-done/
• yaddoshi 20y ago
  Please tell all my customers for me so I can start making the switch to providing Apple and LINUX systems. I'm confounded by the number of customers I run into who are convinced they either need a new Windows Vista computer, or worse, that they need to install Windows Vista on their old computer.
• ernie 20y ago
  MS is no longer significant to startups because (at large companies):"No one was ever fired for buying Microsoft" It's a value proposition that panders first to management's Fear Uncertainty and Doubt and second to actual results.
• DITSS 20y ago
  When did Microsoft die? That's simple. It is the day that Bill Gates decided to leave Microsoft. Not the day he left, but the day that privately, to himself, he decided to leave and devote his life to philanthropy. Everything since then has been just a desperate attempt to grip the sand as it flows through their fingers. The harder they sqeeze, the faster it flows through their fingers (cough Zune and PlaysForSure)
• ka 20y ago
  I suspect that you're right, but MS is not quite fully dead as yet, but they are dying a long, slow, lingering death because they have been so entrenched for so many years past. Think of it as a layer of skin tissue. When the a layer of skin tissue is replaced by the body, it doesn't just disappear overnight. Rather, it starts cracking and peeling first, then over time, it is gradually replaced by a new fresh layer from underneath. MS is currently peeling...
• yb927 20y ago
  Paul, As usual brilliantly written and fantastically succinct-even though it is indeed 'Old News'.
• Lessien 20y ago
  Don't discount the impact of the antitrust suits. The lawyers get a veto on nearly everything within Microsoft now. A company simply cannot be agile when the balance of power is skewed like that.
• prometheas 20y ago
  I feel like Steve had to get ousted and come back for the dramatic resurgence Apple has seen. It seems to me that both Apple and Steve needed to walk down their roads, and work things out for themselves, before they could both be ready to make the accomplishments they've made since 2000. I don't think Apple would have allowed Steve such free reign as they did after his return, had he never left. Conversely, I don't think Steve had the contacts to do what was done with OS X, had he never met Avie and created NeXT. That's just my $0.02, though. :-)
• twocents 20y ago
  I agree, MS is definitely moving in this direction... though not quite dead. They just need a little help getting there. A few additional points... 1. Data formats: The Operating System is becoming less important. The focus should continue to be toward standards. Proprietary Data formats, such as DOC are slowly dying. This is absolutely one of the keys (as evidenced by MS's reaction to Massachusetts when they attempted to pass legislation requiring the use of Standards on their documents). MS has spent nearly their entire dev cycle ensuring "vendor lock in". This is beginning to end. You mentioned JavaScript as an attempt to compromise popular 3rd party solutions. Further research will turn up an unbelievable number of attempts at this (some successful others just a joke and a waste of the customer's time). The message to ALL users is this: Keep your data open It's your data and you should have access to it from more than one company or Application. Avoid forced upgrades and security issues when MS decides to stop supporting an application. 2. Hasta la Vista: BrandonM pointed out MS's apparent contempt for the customer - and contempt is what it is. This is why Windows XP will absolutely be the last OS I ever use from MS. It doesn't make a difference to me if Vista is the greatest OS ever or can be completely killed by an animated cursor. MS has done more to alienate their customers than all the competing products and companies together have been able to do. Alternatives are now ready and available. 3. Alternative OSes: The re-emergence. This area has continued to rise in prominence thanks in large part to Linux, BSD and OS X as well as serverLinux on hosting accounts. Upper-tier Operating systems such as Apple's OS X, Linux, BSD and Solaris are exciting viable alternatives. Second-tier Operating Systems such as OS/2 (eComStation) - capable of running modern browsers (Firefox) and applications can also fill a niche. Even fundamentally sound and high-quality third-tier OSes; such as AmigaOS4 and The RiscOS are beginning to see new momentum, as a result of Web Apps and the kind of backlash Microsoft has created among too many users. While I think these 3rd-Tier OSes need additional modern softTek, I hope they hang in there and continue to progress forward. The OS battle is a war not a battle won within a year or two. 4. Web 2.0 Apps: not just Internet/WAN-based... There is no reason why internet enabled apps couldn't reach any desktop OS. A complete local LAMP environment, for example, can easily be set up on any number of alternative Operating Systems. So if your needs can be filled with Web-based Applications, they can also be run locally (or over a LAN) for enhanced speeds. Even portable computing devices (Nokia N800, Pepper Pad, etc..) shouldn't have a problem setting up this environment. By default, these types of apps are network-centric. Businesses already loves and need them but many solutions are currently custom-built. Web Apps will continue to grow in functionality and will find a home on low-cost LAMP infrastutures as opposed to the more expensive WIMP or proprietary windows architecture. 5. Pointed out in the article was the power of a monopoly. A user commented on it's ability to kill competition. There was at least one objection to this. Below is only one example of the many instances of mafia-like bahavior by Microsoft: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/20/be_inc_sues_microsoft/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/02/20/be_inc_sues_microsoft/ In general, arrogant and abusive behavior by any company has a negative effect (google: Sony, DRM, backdoor rootkit OR Intel cpu tracking ID privacy). Are commercial software and digital media companies in danger? Yes... Google (as well as many users) are aware of the dark side of capitalism. This dark side has opened the door to GPL software (as well as various other open source licenses) and the famous "do no evil" guarantee from a major international vendor - probably a first in the history of commerce (maybe someone can verify this). 6. Newbies: The most important segment of the population and the hardest to reach. It wasn't until the emergence of Firefox that this group began to take notice of the failings of MS. Microsoft has never recovered from this. IE7 with it's built-in advertising, constant registry writes and lack of portability to even other MS OSes was not the solution. Thanks but no thanks, Microsoft. You are a dinosaur, a relic from a time we will all hopefully soon forget.
• peter 20y ago
  I also hate microsoft. When I learned of the xbox elite I returned my xbox. Now I don't have any microsoft products. I disagree with the end of desktops however. I'd prefer to be a geek at home, not show geekery everywhere I go. I don't like how much time people (including myself) spend on computers and its sad that they bring their laptops with them everywhere they go. A PDA makes more sense. I know two people in my class who have laptops. Everytime I see them open the laptops the battery is dead and they look for an outlet to plugin. They also use the laptops while in class and distract people with windows startup music and MSN messenger beeps. This is a recent addition to cell phones going off in class.
• JoeDuck 20y ago
  For a company to be'dead' yet still make lots of money is a questionable concept. Invoking the fear of startups should not be a goal for MS, rather pulling an IBM and staying viable while Google and Yahoo innovate their pants off. I think MS is (slowly) figuring this out, and they have a lot of momentum and cash to help them along.
• dogbert 20y ago
  Old guy here (54). Great piece 100% on target. To quote one of my favorite movies, "your saying its all swirling around the drain. Had to end sometime." (Chhronicles of Riddick). Classic disruptive technology (web 2.0) transition, but still about five to ten years away from completion. Remember, Microsoft, like any adversary, has a vote. A couple of things still slowing down the transition. 1.) Broadband is not yet universal. Rural areas don't have it always and it they do, it is pricey to get. 2.) The installed base will use Win OS's for quite a while still (i.e., Office, engineering apps, business apps), my bet is on a ten year transition. 3.) There is still and will always be value in a stand alone system with an operating system and a cpu onboard for the same reason that the internet was invented. Millions of independently functional and capable cpu's+OS is a million times more robust than central-source server farms having it all. It will only take one war and one EMP burst to prove that.
• PeterdeLaat 20y ago
  It used to be the case, that if you created an application, you could be crushed very easily by Microsoft if they copied your functionality, because they owned the dominant platform. I think Paul is right that Microsoft cannot do that anymore. The dominant platform is the web now, and Microsoft is not a dominant player there, let alone the owner. The web platform does not have an owner. Currently Google is the most dangerous company for companies who bring a new application, but even they are not as dangerous as Microsoft was. It is still not perceived by its users as the company that brings the web platform. For Google to crush MySpace or YouTube for instance, is not as easy at all as it was for Microsoft to crush Netscape.
• davewhittle 20y ago
  Dead? I know you're making a dramatic overstatement, but as long as Bill Gates is still Chairman of the Board, I hardly think they're dead. How could you not even include Gates' diminished role in your list of reasons why they're "dead?" Gates is clearly the evil genius behind Microsoft. Look at the early flopping around of Vista and the Outlook slowdown fiasco - clear evidence that Gates isn't paying as much attention as he once did. He conquered the industry and doesn't much care any more - now he's off to conquer disease and ignorance and perhaps even world hunger some day. Microsoft dead? Not yet. If they were dead, NOBODY in their right mind would be buying Vista - but just try buying a new PC without Vista... Lame maybe, big and increasingly incompetent, clearly - but certainly not dead. Dave Whittle - Former IBM OS/2 Evangelist
• vzakharov 20y ago
  Be afraid of Microsoft or be afraid of Google - what's the difference, if you're a startup?
• SFBayman 20y ago
  It's always funny to see people with Apple laptops struggle to get their presentations up and running when they come to my company in hopes of a partnership.
• reality2345 20y ago
  Need a Dose of Reality From TFA: "Their victory is so complete that I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops. It was the same in the audience at startup school. All the computer people use Macs or Linux now. Windows is for grandmas, like Macs used to be in the 90s. So not only does the desktop no longer matter, no one who cares about computers uses Microsoft's anyway." This guy needs a dose of reality. If he is "surprised" running across Windows computers, he needs to visit a business, any business. I'd say...99.9% of them use Windows. Perhaps he is just surrounding himself with counterculture hippies, or perhaps he wants to ignore reality. From TFA: "Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops" well perhaps they need to fund more broadly. Cool is cool, but not always profitable. From TFA: "Windows is for grandmas"...and 99.9% of corporate users, and most home users, and many students.
  • rinconj 20y ago
    I work for one of the $100B+ market cap companies that officially is windows only, but internally 20% of people have already replaced their windows with Linux or Mac for superior performance. The OP of this is all about the new breed of startups not the grandma companies you see or work for.
• ar 20y ago
  Microsoft has just moved-on in scope. If you're running a $60B business and you need to grow it to make shareholders happy, you look for the next $10B business. A small project would be something that is a $1B business. It's an amazing scale--growing your business by a billion dollars is less than 2% growth and barely moves your stock price (you know, the CEO's goal). In the space of YCombinator, start-ups are lucky to be targeting a tenth of that small move. They're not dangerous to those players because they've simply stepped beyond that level of playing the game. Sure, one of those start-ups could emerge to be the next big idea, but Microsoft can afford to sit back and acquire them or jump into the market when they see the opportuntity, after a couple attempts at a profitable model have assumed some of the risk. They have no need or incentive chase every little opportunity. Their not going to get it right every time, they missed both online auctions (eBay) and walk-up ad serving (Google), but missing these hardly renders the company dead or irrelevant.
• starman 20y ago
  I'll suggest one other disruptive piece of the puzzle. What's the sound of... BILLIONS of copies of Mac OS X interconnecting? - iPhones, iPods/tablets(soon), notebooks, desktops, media nodes, wearables (see shuffle jewelry to come). And yes, something else will displace the Apple universe.
• starman 20y ago
  I'll suggest one other disruptive piece of the puzzle. What's the sound of... BILLIONS of copies of Mac OS X interconnecting? - iPhones, iPods/tablets(soon), notebooks, desktops, media nodes, wearables (see shuffle jewelry to come). And yes, something else will displace the Apple universe.
• stopbuggingme 20y ago
  This article is absolutely ridicolous. First of all, "Web 2.0" and "AJAX" software won't ever replace Desktop Software, period. The first issue is Performance. JavaScript is awfully slow compared to real programming languages, and this won't change because of some language-specific features. An eMail or calendar application is certainly doable with JavaScript (even though they still aren't as good as desktop software because of the latency). Perhaps even word processing and spreadsheets will be possible with an AJAX app, even though the current AJAX "word processing" and "spreadsheet" apps are ridiculous compared to MS or OpenOffice. But other things, like image editing, video editing, rendering and 3D games just aren't feasible with AJAX. JavaScript is too slow to compute stuff on the client and the latency is too high to do everything on the server, and also someone would have to pay for the server the work is being done on. It won't happen. But even if it were technically feasible it wouldn't happen. That's because it doesn't offer many advantages over traditional apps. Sure, you can access your data from everywhere, but for everything that matters, that is already the case. For example, IMAP is spreading more and more - why on earth would i use some crappy AJAX eMail client? And there's another very important reason why AJAX won't take over the World: privacy. There are a lot of things that i just don't want to lie around on someone elses server. Secondly, high-bandwith connections aren't available for everyone. Think of people living in rural areas, and of people who just don't need it. Yes, those people do exist, and they won't spend 20€/Month just to do what they already do with conventional software. Thirdly, it's just not true that "All the computer people use Macs or Linux now". I study CS, and while most of my fellow students have tried Linux, nearly everyone returned back to Windows. That's because nearly every interesting piece of open source software is available for Windows too, while there is a lot of software that is Windows-only. An OS is just a platform for running software, and the software is what matters. In the end, you even claim that Microsoft sucks. Well, the truth is, they don't really suck very hard anymore. Yes, Windows 1.0-ME were crap, but the Windows NT/2000/XP series is good enough for most people (I haven't tried Vista yet). I've never worked with Visual Studio, but a lot of people claim it's a superb IDE for C/C++. Then you have MS Office. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for almost everyone, and it doesn't suck any harder than it's primary competition, OpenOffice.org (In fact, OpenOffice.org's Base doesn't even come close to the functionality of Access and there is also no good replacement for Visio - no, Dia and Kivio aren't, and then there is Sharepoint and Exchange and a lot more). Claiming that Microsoft Software generally sucks doesn't help, because it's simply not true, and by expressing stuff like that you only make a fool of yourself.
• stopbuggingme 20y ago
  sorry for double posting...
• jacksprat 20y ago
  It appears that the business life cycle has sped up in the last century. If it took Standard Oil 50 years,IBM 30 years and MS 20 to enter the decline phase, what should we expect GOOG's life cycle to be ? Ironically, the business that views their 'competitors' as harmful and does not embrace and view them in a positive way, will not benefit long term and will create many enemies - besides losing public trust . If Google is true to their 'do no evil' mantra, then they may possibly be the nemesis of big business and enjoy a very long business life cycle.
• stephenrwalli 20y ago
  Well said. I have a couple of blog wrinkles on your view from a year ago: http://stephesblog.blogs.com/my_weblog/2005/11/msft_will_not_b.html http://stephesblog.blogs.com/my_weblog/2005/11/msft_will_not_b.html OpenOffice on /Windows/ actually has the ability to perturb the revenue stream in interesting ways. http://stephesblog.blogs.com/my_weblog/2005/11/i_started_the_w.html http://stephesblog.blogs.com/my_weblog/2005/11/i_started_the_w.html Why they can't just spend their way out of the hole, and why they can't actually motivate the troops under Ozzie.
• djasek 20y ago
  Microsoft will still be THE MAN on the desktop and enterprise for a long time (I just switched to Mac however. Parallels rocks). And .Net is what will keep them ticking. (Office too, but that's a different post. Have you seen what MindManager has done with Word?) If anyone wants to put the last nail in their coffin, build a better .Net. And do it with Lisp. .Net shows what we have needed for a long time. A consistent development platform where it doesn't really matter what language you program in. Everything gets compiled down the same way, everyone uses the same API and libraries. But the syntax is locked away and guarded (big surprise coming from a monopolist). You can't easily find it, and you sure as hell can't easily change it. And even if you do, the byte-code doesn't offer any more power than the over-language. All you can do is beg for a change, and maybe a year later you will get a watered down version. Free us from our syntax chains. You've gone on at length about how cool Lisp is. How it can be morphed into whatever language is needed at the time. So prove it. Fix .Net by describing the language syntax in Lisp. Give the end programmer the ability to see and adjust their chosen language to behave as needed on a project by project basis. And do it in a way that will actually get used. Instead of making a 100 year language, make a 100 year platform where the language can shift as the problems and fads do. It won't be easy, but it might just change the world.
  • Bogo 20y ago
    I'm not sure you realize the can of worms you would be opening up by feeing up the syntax chain. I agree freeing up syntax is a very viable method for imporving codeing, but it is also very easily leads twards confusion in the minds of code maintainers. The idea is old and has been implemented a number of times, but also it has never taken off because of the major problem with what does "for (x) in Y {;;some more code here}" mean? FYI, I've implemented a flexible programming language. They are a bear to implement. I'm positive you don't want to go there. Think about this. The developer tweeks the syntax translation for the code he is working on. What happes to all the other uses of that syntax in the program?
    • djasek 20y ago
      The appropriate use of namespaces and developer discretion would be needed to ensure you don't F up your other code. If you want a switch that checks if one string is contained in another, you don't modify the switch syntax. You make a switchContain. And you know what "for (x) in Y {;;some more code here}" means the same way you know what "x= someFunc(a,b,c)" means. You look it up. Of course it is best if the developer uses good names and comments so you can make a good guess by looking at it. Yea it's hard, and yea it's dangerous. All powerful things are. I don't like being told I can't have something because you think I am too stupid to use it safely. Some people won't be able to use it, and everyone at one point will be too inexperienced to use it correctly. But thats why you layer the more common languages on top. And if you are running an enterprise shop where you can't guarantee the quality of the maintenance developers, don't let your developers use it. etc... Because it's too powerful is not a very convincing argument for me.
• djasek 20y ago
  dupe.
• biofusion 20y ago
  This could quite possibly be one of the worst written articles I've read this year. The points your bring up are beyond childish and really have little information to back it up. So you claim a few groups of yours are using Apple computers, my god that must mean everybody is! I really am not going to argue with you here, Microsoft is clearly not dead.
• jvdvyah 20y ago
  MS is dead that in that it doesn't need to be feared anymore, yes. Nowadays, when MS peceives a startup to be a threat, they rather them acquire them than out-compete them; it's cheaper. Also, I can see Microsoft changing already. .Net Framework v3.0 is actually impressive (which follows tradition: MS always needs three tries to deliver something that is any good). They're definitely catering to the web now with WPF+WPF/E+XML+Atlas+Expression tools, etc.; these are acually great tools (even if rough around the edges) and they can exist and be used alongside all the open source and standards stuff (yes, WPF/E runs on say Firefox on Linux as well); there is no conflict anymore. So, take your average Windows developer/ISV: they know Windows stuff and now they get a bunch of extra tools to help them develop for the web. Why on earth would they switch to Linux or Apple development? By staying with Windows they can slowly migrate their apps and their customers to the web without disrupting anything. And MS has both the resources and the patience to go the distance with this. MS Dead? Nah, don't see it happening. MS no longer to be feared? Sure, but, uh, in what way does that matter, except to incumbent startups?
  • RamonFHerrera 20y ago
    MS no longer to be feared? Sure, but, uh, in what way does that matter, except to incumbent startups? What kind of world do you live in, jvdvyah? Suppose you spent considerable resources learning Java, and one morning M$ wakes up a says; "what company or technology should I kill today?" and they decide to kill Java. Suppose M$ bribes a public (or private) manager, or a State Senator (Marc Pacheco from MA comes to mind) because they don't like ODF. If you were betting on ODF you are suddenly collecting unemployment. -RFH
• seandc 20y ago
  Quote: "It now seems inevitable that applications will live on the web." Well.......... 1. I don't trust the web providers server security. 2. I don't trust the network security on the Internet. 3. I don't trust that the Feds - they can obtain my "web-based" stuff through subpoenas or other means. ....so I won't be usimg web-based applications for anything personal any time soon! Sean
• RamonFHerrera 20y ago
  A dead snake can still kill you. -Ramon
• mint 20y ago
  well, is IBM dead? It seems to me that the word dead really sends people off the edge. IBM is doing better than they were when they made computers. To give them credit, Microsoft could be in the transitional phase. I mean, can you honestly say that you've never played 20 straight hours of Halo on an XBox? I know I can't. Call me optimistic or just crazy, but I still believe that Microsoft is a competitor in technological innovation. I think Google will suffer from the same condition that plagued Microsoft during 2001-2005 (massive egos). This will help other companies (including Microsoft) get their footing and potentially launch a comeback (as Apple did). It seems easy to denounce Microsoft as an evil corporation. It's harder to recognize that they have battles of their own. Remember those antitrust cases? Microsoft was given grief for packaging IE into Windows (let's see, who else packages a wad of their own software into their operating system? hmmmmm.....). Do a search for torrents and you can find the latest Windows (or any windows version). Did geeks believe that stealing someone's hard work was cool? Hell yes. Microsoft is the paranoid old man that it is because we helped put it there while we give graces and laud Google and Apple. I use a Thinkpad running Windows XP (and Ubuntu). To address your Apple computer usage by geeks: it's the same problem with most amateur photographers, they still think fancy toys are vital in making a photograph (ie having Mac OSX in no way improves your abilities as a designer). Like many others have said: stick around and let's see what happens. Meanwhile, anyone up for a game of ultimate frisbee?
• ecuzzillo 20y ago
  I think the link from the essay to this comment page caused an enormous number of dumb users to register here, much like the Web 2.0 article with reddit.
• kawabago 20y ago
  Will the corpse of Microsoft be considered toxic waste?
• tapp 20y ago
  With regard to the thesis Microsoft is Dead and it was Google that killed them, some food for thought: How Microsoft could crush Google in one easy step: http://tinyurl.com/2y8dbh http://tinyurl.com/2y8dbh
  • Goladus 20y ago
    Block all Google ads? It might be a viable strategy, but hardly an easy step. If Microsoft simply offered it as an option, it's unlikely that anyone would care. "Hey users, download this and block Google ads!" Users say, "What are google ads and why should I care about blocking them?" Or, Microsoft sneaks a blocker in via internet explorer and enables it by default. If they're lucky, it won't break anything else and Google won't be able to hack around it, but either way Google would sue.
• pythonic 20y ago
  Paul Graham, you are so Not Enterprisey. Thank You! What some of the (ok, us) "older" folks don't realize is that the younger generation will bring their technology to work with them and it will eat away at the corporate desktop from within despite all the "we need a big vendor to cover our asses when the Fed regulators come a knockin'" attitudes that prevail in that world. And IBM is still there to beat them down from above.
• Richard 20y ago
  I would like to accept that MS is dead, but I can't until MacOS and Linux start making a better showing in my webserver logs. MS can't die as long as they still have a lock on the end user.
• ynotds 20y ago
  25 years ago I grabbed a job writing for ComputerWorld Australia and quickly settled on a methodology of getting two more names from anybody I spoke to. Within months I had had contact with just about everybody in the local computer industry with the exception of IBM. No leads led there, at least not until much later when I heard from Boyd Munro who had been our IBM rep back when I was learning to program (Assembler) and to analyse and design systems, but even he did not provide much in the way of links back to IBM as he was busy with his own software company by then. A generation later "They're in a different world." clearly applies to M$ the way it did to IBM in 1982, though IBM's shadow was still large enough to inspire Apple's 1984 commercial.
• bitemebiteme 20y ago
  It's pretty obvious to the MILLIONS of developers and hackers that not only survive but thrive in the Windows world that you really have ignored them for your entire career. You live in one ecosystem we live in another, The main difference between us and you is that you feel it necessary to throw stones at us (or in this case verbal diarrhea) every so often and we are happy to let you live in your world, and respect you for it, while we happily go about our business shaking our heads at how absolutely uninformed you are about our world. You are part of the problem not part of the solution. See you in a couple of years when you pop your head out of your hole and shit all over us again.
  • BrandonM 20y ago
    Did you just say "MILLIONS of [...] hackers [...] in the Windows world"? Wow, that's pretty funny, because Windows isn't really designed for hackers, you know? I mean, sure, they can go out and buy Visual Studio and write some programs, but why not just get an OS that supports real hacking out of the box, and is free? I mean, either the definition of "hacker" has expanded quite liberally, or we should start seeing a slew of awesome apps start rolling out any minute now...
    • FritFrut 20y ago
      "designed for hackers"??? Haha, what a load of... You could look at the many definitions of 'hacker', and none of them precludes hackers on Windows. But, if you believe that 'real hacking' is wasting hundreds of hours trying to make your graphics card work, then yes, by no means use the free one, and consider yourself 'a real hacker', when you manage to get the sound out of your soundcard.
      • BrandonM 20y ago
        I didn't mean hacking the OS, which I agree can be a time-sink if you don't know where to look for the answers online (Gentoo-wiki is a great source of answers). I meant that GNU/Linux has simple but powerful IDEs like vim built-in, and most distributions come with gcc as well for compiling the basic languages. There are higher-level programming languages included in the installation like Perl, Python, Java, and more. If you want to install new ones, it's simple, just type "emerge ruby sbcl ocaml ...". I didn't intend my comment to mean that Windows doesn't have legitimate hackers, I was just saying that it doesn't support them nearly as well as others do, with its closed API and licensed software-building tools. I was also poking fun at the "MILLIONS of hackers" comment, because in my opinion, there aren't millions of hackers in the entire world. I don't believe that hacker simply means "programmer", but rather, something a bit more. I certainly wouldn't consider myself to be one yet, even though I am quite confident in my programming skills. So I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that there aren't Windows hackers, just that I seriously doubt that there are millions of them.
• bfarmer 20y ago
  Great points. I think that part of what microsoft doesn't understand is that it's no longer completely about the bottom line. Customer satisfaction is the driving force of the web 2.0 movement, and while I think that microsoft is hardly dead, it needs to evolve a great deal (basically reiterating what Paul said). I disagree that the desktop is dead though, I think that many people overestimate the capabilities of the of the web as it is today (give it a few more years). This might just be me overreaching and being completely wrong, but I believe that desktops will have a greater role in the far future because people will be able to host and manage their own slices of the internet. In a few years the desktop will be the equivalent of a glorified facebook profile and weblog hosted by the individual, and the user experience will be something of an integrated desktop/internet environment with web 2.0 companies reduced to widgets downloaded onto the desktop. Maybe. Thanks for the good essay Paul.
• raj 20y ago
  the only issue i take with this article is the following (and its an issue that, when i hear someone say it, it almost immediately calls everything else into question about their logic and reasoning): not everyone can get broadband. not everyone can AFFORD broadband. get your head out of the Valley, out of San Fran, out of Austin or California or New York city, and go ANYwhere in Everywhere, USA, or Anywhere Else, Rest-of-the-World, and you'll see that broadband is either insanely prolific or utterly non-existent, government-funded or tough-to-afford for the working class, and a complete scattershot congregation of technologies, hardware and security.
• tshelton 20y ago
  Speaking to a microsoftie this evening about all this and another lightbulb went on -- one of the things hobbling Microsoft is its historical focus on the partner as the channel for connecting with customers. Think about it -- how often do you buy a Microsoft product directly from Microsoft? Never? You always buy it through someone else, through the "channel" -- which might be a reseller, a var, or an oem. This disconnection from the customer is killing microsoft in the NEW world...
• hyoussef 20y ago
  Paul realizes that he cannot win by predicting market dynamics. Instead, this is his shot at shaping it.
  • stolennomen 20y ago
    Lets hope he succeeds.
• noway 20y ago
  Might be true if you live in "Silicon Valley lead shielding" talking only with startup guys. Completely wrong outside. How many people know Y-combinator? Here you are...
• Robby 20y ago
  I really don't get the hype about Ajax etc. This (and maybe the younger ones are lacking this knowledge) effect could be done since the mid 90s. In those days, you eithr used a frameset with a hidden frame to get the update stuff from the server and put it into the browser via DOM access. Or, to stay with MS, you could use a hidden IFRAME. Really no rocket science... so, the killer apps these days are small, simple and FAST desktop apps (whatever desktop people use). We will see...
• dhpeterson 20y ago
  Old news! I've been using Linux since 1993, been involved in startups since 1999, and about the last time that I paid any attention to Microsoft was when they launched .NET (around 2003). In fact, the .NET implementation (a belated catch-up in many ways to Java) was about the only semi-innovative development effort I have seen come out of MS in the last 10 years. Even so, it was little more than a tarted-up virtual machine, a cleaned-up set of Java-equivalent programming APIs, and a couple of cool features like crypto-signed DLLs, a global assembly cache (hmm - where do you put all your JAR files, then?!) and the ability to mix and match programming languages in a single application (though only one target language per DLL, or more strictly, per .NET "assembly"). Then, Miguel and the gang came along and wrote Mono, and pretty much re-implemented everything of value from .NET, without the licencing overheads of running in a windoze only environment. That basically took the wind out of the sails for Microsoft, and they've been floating around, almost impassive, pretty much just watching the emergence of ASP/SaaS computing, web 2.0, AJAX, Ruby on Rails, blogging, wikipedia, bittorrent, skype, asterisk and everything else from the sidelines ever since. I think the real problem comes back to people. It's a bit like Paul's articles on Great Hackers and what motivates them. I know plenty of great hackers (and I would like think that a couple of startups later I am at least a good one! - though I find myself more and more on the business side in recent times, growing our company and developing our people - good young hackers themselves). I even used to know a few guys at Microsoft (Australia and Singapore). The last "good" person that I knew who went to Microsoft (from a PhD programme at Melbourne Uni) joined in 2002. Since then, nobody I know even went near the place. If you can't attract great people, then you won't build great products, and everything else is a forgone conclusion. Microsoft has built great cash-cow businesses, and great fortunes for its founders, but I don't believe it will ever be a player again.
  • rbirkby 20y ago
    Sorry to be really anal and pedantic, but you can have more than 1 language in a .Net DLL (assembly). You compile the code for each language to a .Net module, then bind these together with a manifest into a .Net assembly. I told you it was anal.
  • bobb 19y ago
    C# is so much better than Java it's not funny - sorry - I guess you would have to try it out to know...
• JamesPunk 20y ago
  You've got to be an idiot to think Microsoft is dead. Ever seen WPF/e? Photosynth? Xbox 360? Virtual Earth 3D? Not to mention the framework for 90+% of computers and one of the biggest R&D initiatives of any private company. Then there's that little $60 BILLION nestegg sitting in the bank waiting for new oppotunities. Is there even one synapse in your whole head firing? You've got to be cold stupid to think they're dead.
• deep_throat 20y ago
  Microsoft makes more money than any Y Combinator startup ever will. Bill Gates is off saving the world with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, while PG is busy exploiting young talent.
• pio 20y ago
  Paul, have you heard anything about enterprise software? :)
• amoroso 20y ago
  More online Web 2.0 image editing tools: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/free-online-photo-editors/ http://www.dailyblogtips.com/free-online-photo-editors/
• AndyDavies 20y ago
  MS may be past their peak but they're certainly not dead and won't be while they've still got large corporations willing to buy their software. Some of your arguments just don't hold water, at one point you're arguing the desktop is dead but then oh one of the reasons MS is in trouble is Apple's desktop? Web based applications may be on the rise but there are plenty of problems with them too, disconnected operation, lack of backups etc. being some of them. The platform of the future is the phone - you've only got to look at how it's used to fuel innovation in some of the third world countries.
• VinnyLingham 20y ago
  In a recent blog post, I explain why Web Applications are far superior to Desktop Applications. Desktop apps are by and large OS dependent and the economics of running a desktop business are not as good as a web app business. My post here : http://www.vinnylingham.com/2007/02/top-20-reasons-why-web-apps-are-superior-to-desktop-apps.html http://www.vinnylingham.com/2007/02/top-20-reasons-why-web-apps-are-superior-to-desktop-apps.html I totally agree with Paul in almost everything, however I don't believe buying up all the web 2.0 companies would work. Microsoft has to actually concede that web apps are the future - they still don't believe that it is!
• danw 20y ago
  Microsoft is dead because we no longer use windows as a platform. We mostly stay away from desktop applications and instead develop web apps. We build on browsers now. They're easier to develop for, there's no need to install apps and compatability is easier (compare porting an app between mac, linux and win to firefox, IE, safari). Now that getting apps to the users is easier I think people need to tackle the next problem: Mobile. Currently developing apps for mobile is possibly harder than for the desktop. The operators restrict you and the handsets are fragmented and inconsistent. Even with the supposedly crossplatform java has different api's on different handsets. Perhaps the mobile problem could be solved in the same way as the desktop with web apps. We would need reliable, fast wireless broadband coverage and good mobile browsers that follow the same standards. I dont see this happening for 5 or so years. Without allowing web apps to access phone api features I'm not sure if this is the best solution. All I can see is that whoever solves the mobile problem has a chance to be a new tech giant.
• terrycojones 20y ago
  Another telling sign: in the late 90s when trying to raise money for a startup you had to have an answer to the M question. These days you need an answer to the G question. No-one asks the M any more, it's just not relevant.
• xemacs5 20y ago
  Almost exactly ten years after John Walker (founder of Autodesk) wrote "Microsoft at Apogee" - http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/msapogee.html http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/msapogee.html . I have to admit I was surprised that no-one mentioned this essay.
• linuxiac 20y ago
  Surprisingly eye opening to me, who is still trying to educate WinIdiots and WinMorons, by handing out free LiveCDs like http://pclinuxos.com http://pclinuxos.com in Costco, and WalMart. CompUSA and BestBuy seem to be dead, ala Microsoft. They have a few devoted WinIdiots and WinMorons, but, most folks just shop on the Internet, now, for high tech. goodies, running upto 50X faster in GNU/Linux, on an old PC, so it all looks as great as Mac, at reduced investment, that recycles systems for another 10 years! Anybody who knows a school kid, or, a geek, has heard of Linux, and probably even has at least one computer that runs it! Exception is School Boards in 10 remaining states who still support convicted felon Microsoft, desktop Windows, and the "trusted partner" protection racket, while Linux is faster, safer, runs on old equipment, and is FREE! 310 of the distros are at http://livecdlist.com http://livecdlist.com
• ngift 20y ago
  You article sums up what I think as well. Microsoft no longer has an technical relevance, and many other companies have taken the lead in innovation. I blogged about this in December in an article I called "The Microsoft Bubble in 2006": http://www.osxautomation.com/2006/12/10/the-microsoft-bubble-in-2006/ http://www.osxautomation.com/2006/12/10/the-microsoft-bubble-in-2006/
• linuxiac 20y ago
  Deep thoughts. Thanks for them. Exeeding my goal since 1997, converting one computer and/or person each week to Open Source, usually GNU/Linux, but, have done some BSD (yes, there are some 25 of them!), I am fighting the lock-in monopolism of BOTH Apple/Macintosh and the multiple convicted felon Microsoft. Major reasons people switch, from my experience: 1. Simplicity of use - GNU/Linux and BSD are immune to the "114,000 Microsoft Virus Definitions" and provide thousands of included applications: games, suites, browsers. 2. Users are tired of having to become a computer technician and spend 2 hours or more each week trying to clean or prevent Microsoft virus, trojan, malware infestations. 3. Disgruntled that Microsoft treats paying customers like criminals, but, now aware that convicted felons act that way, thus, WGA, and in Vista, corporate Microsoft spyware with a "shutdown feature"! Why would anyone accept this? 4. Realization that Microsoft and Mac will sell included free stuff, without proper conscience, and worry about the 'details' such as royalties, customer support, or customer satisfaction, "later"! 5. Awareness that 15 day TRIAL WARE is NOT a selling point for new Dell, HP, Compaq, Gateway computers... it is a dis-incentive, thus the great migration to FOSS, where all the FREE software is self protecting, at no extra penalty to the customer. Yeah, http://distrowatch.com http://distrowatch.com has it, and http://livecdlist.com http://livecdlist.com has it Live!
• trek 20y ago
  Microsoft recently came to my graduate school to recruit for user experience design and user experience research positions. 10 folks out of my program (about 25% of us) scored and interview. Every single one of us had no intention of working for Microsoft and joked about it intensely. Microsoft had be relegated to the realm of other boring places to do our type of work but that you interview at for practice (and, you know, just in case that job at google doesn't pan out). In my interview, the topic of digg.com came up and neither interviewer had heard of them. I said they were like a type of slahsdot, or maybe magnolia. Never heard of those either I quipped "oh, maybe you're not involve much in the web / web development world". "Actually, I'm one of the project managers for Internet Explorer." The interview went downhill, from Microsoft, from that point forward. My heart wasn't even in it "just in case" anymore.
• iamwil 20y ago
  I'm a little bit surprised that pg posted this article at all. It's probably a bad choice of words, as "dead" can mean lots of things other than what I think pg means: it's not as intimidating to startups as it use to be. It will not be the source of technical innovation that attracts the best minds in the world, as it once was. In any case, a couple days ago, I was on the john, reading Hackers and Painters, and there's a chapter on "What you can't say" dealing with controversial thoughts. Apparently, this is one of them. pg's advice in the end of the article was not to say anything at all, so you don't have to deal with bickering with others, and go about your merry way. But then again, I don't see pg here in the trenches. In fact, most of us have wasted our time (some more than others) posting 200+ posts here, instead of working on our startups.
• sha 20y ago
  Yes you Are right
• agkjgh4kjghkjh 20y ago
  As a developer of MS web solutions that people are happy with, and can be developed quite quickly, many of these points fail to resonate with me. Users pretty much don't care what the file extension of the page is serving up their content, they just want it to work. I can develop develop rich UI pages with the MS AJAX controls very easily and users are happy. As a developer, working in the open source, 5 billion different products in various stages of non-existant support and working in a single consistent framework with fabulous support, it isn't a difficult decision which way to go... Unless you are one of those "software tools should be free" kind of people who doesn't mind not getting paid either.
• zackola 20y ago
  Old news! Death to Microsoft! The more interesting question is do they really not realize they suck? When you have Google as the #1 search engine being used within Microsoft and iPods as the #1 music players being used by Microsoft employees, I find it very hard to believe they don't know they suck. http://www.techweb.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189500876&cid=RSSfeed_TechWeb http://www.techweb.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189500876&cid=RSSfeed_TechWeb http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2005/02/66460 http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2005/02/66460
  • alive88 20y ago
    In your two examples MS acknowledges the comparison (1) they entered search late, with the wrong strategy. they admit it. (2) Zune also entered late. but was an effort to get established in those markets. Both examples do not comprehensively define MS, or future of core MS strategies, or of the future of MS including search and player strategies
    • zackola 20y ago
      Out of morbid curiosity, what would you say comprehensively defines MS, or future MS strategies? They seem to constantly try to branch out into established markets by throwing tons of money at every area they can think of without actually doing innovative work in any area. It seems they are generally left in the dust trying to catch up to established markets because they lack the innovation to develop and market anything new and interesting on their own.
• tetley 20y ago
  I find this unnecessary and to refer to Microsoft as being for Grandmas, I hope all the Grandmas land on this guys head and trample him. Such an unfortunate phrase for him to use. I sure hope Microsoft rises up and pounds h... out of such superegos.
  • microsoftx 20y ago
    what he actually means is that windows is Intuitive enough for even a grandma to use. That in my opinion is a tremendous compliment. Ask yourself this : Can a grandma install Debian? Is a grandma interested in setting herself apart from the masses with a trendy powerbook? No and No. A grandma only wants something that works well. Like 99.999% of the world's population. People want what is easy and intuitive. Geeks, hackers and trendy insecure people revel in the obscure and fashionable (Linux and Macs).
• tetley 20y ago
  I find this unnecessary and to refer to Microsoft as being for Grandmas, I hope all the Grandmas land on this guys head and trample him. Such an unfortunate phrase for him to use. I sure hope Microsoft rises up and pounds h... out of such superegos.
• rhue 20y ago
  Dear Paul, While you lay out several interesting point and are right on the fact that Microsoft is facing some serious challenges. It is not dead by any means and still exists in the game. You point out some reasons Microsoft why is "dead": "AJAX and Javascript is the new programming model of choice" I am currently developing a web 2.0 venture namely UReporting. Our Project is based almost entirely on Microsoft technologies. We had the option to use both LAMP based development or ASP.Net/ MS Sql. We chose Microsoft as it served all our needs and then some. Mapping, mobile, streaming, AJAX, Scalability, Community building you name it we are doing it. I have nothing against Javascript or AJAX but I can assure you Microsoft technologies can do everything that AJAX or Javascripting can. Also Ajax for ASP.NET is widely avaialable and used. This is a view not from someone who funds ventures but an actual entreprenuer seeking to minimize costs and develop a scalable and efficient platform. "Buy all the good "Web 2.0" startups. They could get substantially all of them for less than they'd have to pay for Facebook." Interesting point especially coming from someone who funds such venture... In conclusion, While microsoft is definately facing some challenges today (normal for all major businesses), there is no indication they are even close to where you claim them to be. Have a Good Day Danial Jameel www.UReporting.com
• Nakarti 20y ago
  I don't think the desktop is dead, but I will agree that it's retired: It will pick up new jobs(programs) just for something to do, but it will be part-time(eg Openoffice) whereas the real effort will go to vacations(games) and hobbies like collecting videos(YouTube) which won't even always need so much effort. I'll stop because my thoughts aren't making sense anymore, but yes the Desktop is retired, and the desktop companies are dead. You can tell some of them(Adobe) know this because they're buying webtop application(Macromedia) companies to stay alive. I just wish Flash would work better on Linux instead of worse. And if I ever buy another prebuilt computer, it probably will be a Mac, since Linux doesn't get the same recognition or money for its similar market share.
• bongokarl 20y ago
  all the game-developers and 3d-technology-people use windows. they are pretty strong in this field. thats because osx and linux dont natively and fully support the gfx-hardware...
  • BrandonM 20y ago
    ...and of course, with that reply you actually mean that the gfx-hardware doesn't natively support osx and linux :). I, for one, marvel at the sheer number of drivers that have been written for free for hardware manufactured by companies who still think Windows is the only OS.
    • malkia 19y ago
      Talk about the frustration of your game not working properly under Vista. At least some pieces of DX10 would be brought back in XP at the end of the year.
    • malkia 19y ago
      Talk about the frustration of your game not working properly under Vista. At least some pieces of DX10 would be brought back in XP at the end of the year.
    • malkia 19y ago
      Talk about the frustration of your game not working properly under Vista. At least some pieces of DX10 would be brought back in XP at the end of the year.
    • malkia 19y ago
      Talk about the frustration of your game not working properly under Vista. At least some pieces of DX10 would be brought back in XP at the end of the year.
    • malkia 19y ago
      Talk about the frustration of your game not working properly under Vista. At least some pieces of DX10 would be brought back in XP at the end of the year.
• pharbeson 20y ago
  Maybe this is silly, but the only sentence I didn't really understand was "The situation is analogous to the writing of "literary theorists." I've tried to understand literary theory and had zero success. I just assumed that either I wasn't trying hard enough or just wasn't smart enough. But you suggest they _could_ make it clearer, and simply _don't bother_?! That would be...disappointing? Inexplicable?
• juancarlos 20y ago
  I disagree to some extend. I rather see it as things don't disappear; they transformed. Microsoft realized it would die if they didn't react with their environment. They know they where gonna get hit in their software department, so... While people were concerned with Microsoft and its monopoly in the OS market, they realized they needed to expand and eventually transform. People, may I say they own the gaming industry, and Nintendo. But according to reg stats whichever gaming system comes out firsts wins the market. Hello Xbox360 ~ Microsoft's new empire. Windows is dead. That is true.
• microsoftx 20y ago
  Paul Graham is the Ann Coulter of the Web 2.0 world. Formula for success: 1) Write/say something controversial 2) Leverage the idea into a book 3) Profit!
  • BrandonM 20y ago
    Yeah, because his books so far have no substance at all... (cough one of the top Lisp books out there cough)
• jonhendry 20y ago
  Paul, I think Apple's resurgence required that Jobs be pushed out. I feel that his time in the wilderness helped him grow in ways that would not have been possible if he had stayed safely ensconced at Apple. Instead of being at a hugely successful company like Apple, he spent 12 years focused on the challenges at NeXT and Pixar. And the challenges at NeXT were significant. Both companies brought him into contact with very different customer bases. For example, NeXT had a number of major investment banks as big clients. (Granted, Jobs would have had contact with them as CEO of Apple, but as their customer, which is rather different.)
  • vitaboy 20y ago
    jonhendry is right that Apple is only where it is today because of the wisdom that Jobs gained after being pushed out of Apple. From the commencement speech he gave to the Stanford graduating class of 2005: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html "I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle." I think this pretty much disputes Paul's notion that Jobs' being fired from Apple was somehow a bad thing. It was bad in the sense that the people who took over nearly destroyed Apple, but it also set-up the conditions for a reborn Jobs to return and make the company into what it is today.
• jonhendry 20y ago
  Also... I don't know why any company would use Windows for important machines. Requiring the use of Windows is like requiring that all key staff be recruited from drug rehabs.
• Tweeker 20y ago
  If you want to play games your still stuck with Microsoft. They have been fairly effective at marginalizing OpenGL. However, requiring Vista for DX10 will push many to looking for alternatives. Alas, the alternative seems to be the console currently. While games is may "fun", its still the main driver of PC hardware development. 3D cards for games have long since subsumed CAD cards.
• alive88 20y ago
  Why have you chosen Death as your metaphor? We should pay some credence to what Microsoft has done to computing. I think they have built industry leading applications and provided (in some cases) some vision for development. Hands down they once owned computing. Certainly the business model allowed them to become very rich and powerful. Knowing what we know now - maybe we shouldn't have let it happen. Does your article simply state, the industry has changed? Why is Google more important now than Microsoft? Collaborative documents and its respective monetization - who are the leaders? Monetization and sustainability seem to me to be king. What is important about your article? Doesn't Microsoft continue to be profitable, sustainable, and offer value to its customers? Is there something important about a loss of their lock (except the obvious)? Is there a social statement there? How does this translate to me as a user, a developer, a business person?
• nuke 20y ago
  IBM died in exactly the same way. They became a niche player in the market they had a hand in creating... all the way down to the actual hardware (desktop then laptop). They finally sold their interest in the personal computer market that they said would go nowhere. Now, Microsoft, with the same attitude towards open source and open standards is suffering the same climb towards obscurity. Google embraced open standards (POP, SMTP, HTTP, AJAX, Jabber, etc) and actually extended such to amazing utility (check out their stock market tools) and somehow free... the concept that undoes Microsoft. Microsoft crushed the browser market with "Free" IE and Google is crushing Microsoft with free computing. Do you need MS Vista? Heck no, just XP with a decent browser (Firefox) and most people are good to go. Microsoft creates the new terminals of the millennia and Google is the new mainframe. The king is dead, long live the king.
• tommyw 20y ago
  I think your point about MS inheriting status from IBM is key here. MS has always been primarily a business proposition. Bill, in presenting IBM a DOS he essentially bought off the shelf, posited the entire enterprise as 'a deal' to be struck. What OSX and Linux both present is a vision, an ideal of how things should be. That ultimately is what is absent in Redmond.
• IamDavo 20y ago
  Agree. I now laugh when I hear the Softies talk about how MS is competing with Google. That game is over. Google does not need to compete with MS, but MS must compete with Google. It is also sad to see their current ad campaign with the dinosaurs...do they even see what they are doing? I went back to Mac 4 years ago and have never looked back. I am am one app away from being completely Microsoft free! If they did not have so much cash I would short the stock. Davo
• theafroguy 20y ago
  Although I totally agree that Macs are far superior, I don't share your surprise when I come across a PC. Apple are definitely gaining traction, but Micrsoft still commands most of the market.
• polterguy 20y ago
  It's quite funny you say this, because even their Ajax initiative deliberately sucks! We're a competitor to ASP.NET Ajax and we're not even afraid of them! Sure they've got like 10 000 more downloads per month than us, but their product quality sucks to such an extent we think they've with purpose built it bad just to make sure it's good enough for developers to embrace it but bad enough it'll take ten years to build Office with it! Someone at MS once said; "for someone to take the lead over MS today means MS must 'bend over' and let themself become the IBM version 2.0", well that's just what they're doing in these days! And we're here to "plug" them!! ;) PS! ajaxwidgets.com .t
• rintaromasuda 20y ago
  I think I'm in the younger half, so I felt this should be the old news. But the day which I finally don't use Windows while I'm work is going to be several years later from now.
• kencarpenter 20y ago
  Microsoft is dead because their primary product is sold to sheep, who buy the biggest instead of the best. ... How long did they work on Vista, and how bad is it? Too long, and awful! Long live Apple! Gimme an iPhone now!
• ripragged 20y ago
  Well, I don't know much about markets and such, but I know this. There is no spontaneous positive buzz about Microsoft anywhere -- not even on sites where Microsoft is king. There is spontaneous positive buzz about Apple, everywhere -- even on sites where Microsoft is king. It isn't hard to see. Microsoft may not be dead, but they have definitely dropped the soap.
• jill_gates 20y ago
  Hmmm, no mention of the close scrape with the DoJ (but for a change of government...). And no mention of how the current EC drubbing has emboldened competitors to take the first tentative steps back out into the sunshine in decades? Apart from this strange omission, I agree with the sentiment of this essay. I wish I had kept the transcript of the argument I had with a Microsoft employee in one of their forums about 6 years ago. At the end of it, he said something like, "well, good luck storming the fortress. The walls are pretty high and our war chest is huge!". To which I replied with something like, "I am sure that's just the sort of thing the captain of the Titanic was thinking right up to the part where that iceberg ripped his boat apart like a piece of wet tissue". I then went on to mention that bigger companies had fallen than Microsoft (can't recall the timing of Exxon, or whatever it was called).
• Switched 20y ago
  Couldn't agree more. This subject has in fact been in my mind since I switched to using Mac OS X. One would only have to look at Windows Vista to realise just how much MS has fallen behind. After years of development, hypes, numerous delays and billions of dollars spent, all it could come up with is a product that devoids of any innovation. What a disappointment. Curiously, MS has further shot itself in the foot by releasing so many versions of the OS and confused its loyal users in the process. A case in point, it has abandoned "Pay For Sure" music copy protection, leaving its loyal partners and users in the lurch. It goes to show just how deperate MS has been trying to catch up (let alone compete) with its competitors. Would the company disappear tomorrow ? No, Is the company dying ? Yes. Is it the beginning of the end ? Yes.
• Switched 20y ago
  Couldn't agree more. This subject has in fact been in my mind since I switched to using Mac OS X. One would only have to look at Windows Vista to realise just how much MS has fallen behind. After years of development, hypes, numerous delays and billions of dollars spent, all it could come up with is a product that devoids of any innovation. What a disappointment. Curiously, MS has further shot itself in the foot by releasing so many versions of the OS and confused its loyal users in the process. A case in point, it has abandoned "Pay For Sure" music copy protection, leaving its loyal partners and users in the lurch. It goes to show just how deperate MS has been trying to catch up (let alone compete) with its competitors. Would the company disappear tomorrow ? No, Is the company dying ? Yes. Is it the beginning of the end ? Yes.
• stolennomen 20y ago
  FACT: All companies dies eventually one way or another. FACT: Microsoft is in the company I would like to see die the most. Overall I wouldnt say that the company is dead yet, but I agree that they are dying. I do agree that the concepts on which they were built have died - this is probably what the author of this article really means. The body is dead but rigor mortis has not yet set in. Im not sure I would agree with this Web 2.0 business. To me the web is a very vacuous place - all sizzle and no steak. Its mainly a playground for the porn industry and identity thieves, and Microsoft wannabees desperately trying to convince people something great is about to happen there. So far nothing great has. In many ways the web is like present day hollywood with its boom-vrash flash-bang movies. Full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing. All sight and sound but no plot and nothing for the intellect. The web is a wild west arizona desert - full of snake oil salesmen - its just the bandwidth is higher.
• stolennomen 20y ago
  FACT: All companies dies eventually one way or another. FACT: Microsoft is in the company I would like to see die the most. Overall I wouldnt say that the company is dead yet, but I agree that they are dying. I do agree that the concepts on which they were built have died - this is probably what the author of this article really means. The body is dead but rigor mortis has not yet set in. Im not sure I would agree with this Web 2.0 business. To me the web is a very vacuous place - all sizzle and no steak. Its mainly a playground for the porn industry and identity thieves, and Microsoft wannabees desperately trying to convince people something great is about to happen there. So far nothing great has. In many ways the web is like present day hollywood with its boom-vrash flash-bang movies. Full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing. All sight and sound but no plot and nothing for the intellect. The web is a wild west arizona desert - full of snake oil salesmen - its just the bandwidth is higher.
  • skeeterbug 20y ago
    FACT: Your second fact is actually an opinion.
• stolennomen 20y ago
  Do people really trust these web services with their private info? Is this the same web with all the spam emails - lottery wins, viagra sales, fake bank communications, etc? The web that is full of viruses? The web where no one really knows who they are dealing with? These must be some strange new kind of human beings. Me, I trust no one.
• Adler 20y ago
  I get a kick out of these articles. But, Google is my friend. I tell evey one that. Power beyond belief. Meanwhile, when will MAC die? I believe in opensource, and all the goodness there. It is a global village. The MAC is too expensive hardware-wise, and well we don't call it M$ for nothing. Adler Phoenix, Arizona
• coalincash 20y ago
  As a heavy Google user I would have to strongly disagree with you. Why? Microsoft might be trying to play catch-up with Google all the time, but there are more important things than Google. Sure I use Google and Linux all the time for all my docs, e-mail and just about all my work as well. Here's the thing though, a PC is still cheaper than a Mac even with Vista. PC makers won't want to switch to Linux either because of tech support. Microsoft still has a very big share of the market and no one can deny it. Sure the iPod helps Macs sell, but not enough for Microsoft to care. Here's the argument, everyone needs an operating system and something that just works. Linux is still not for the average human, and PC makers won't resell something from Apple. Right now Microsoft wins, and probably will for the next five to ten years. Sure there are Firefox, Google, Linux, but people just want something that works and to be honest Microsoft offerings are good enough. P.S. We need to remember that Microsoft has Xbox 360 and the Zune. All which work with Windows.
• khodabakchian 20y ago
  7 years ago, we started a company called Collaxa. At that time, all our intranet servers and developer machines where dell/windows with a couple of linux machines only (CVS, build). Most people where using Office. This year, we are starting a new venture. This time, all the developers run on Mac and all the servers are either hosted or running linux. All the presentations are make using Keynote, the intranet is a wiki (no more word) and some google spreadsheets. No one is using Office. The end result: we have not payed a single dollar to Microsoft. Although big corporations are locked in, the trend is clear. MSFT is going to need a major turn around to get back on their feet.
• carboncat 20y ago
  I think you're thinking too much in sort of "playground politics" and not about capitalist systems. It doesn't matter who is afraid of who, or who the big mean kid is. Microsoft dominates the charts in the Amazon software bestsellers: google doesn't have anything in that list. What does that tell you? You're comparing apples and oranges. The "IT industry" is no longer a single industry, so it's no longer about getting a bigger slice of a single cake. When Microsoft does a major product launch that bombs (in the sense of Battleship Earth), then I'll take this proposition seriously. While they have chart topper after chart topper, there isn's a case. I can see that your response to the "well they sell lots of software" argument is dismissive, but the fact that they do says a lot. It speaks to: market dominance due to historical monopoly; continued product development and support; and continued acceptance of Microsoft products by the marketplace. This might sound simplistic, but these are the hard, cold facts. It's fun to predict the demise of a giant (and exciting and controversial). It's boring to predict that they'll lumber on, giant-like, for years to come. That's not interesting or newsworthy! But sometimes the boring predictions are the most likely ones to occur.
• benknight 20y ago
  I have always enjoyed reading Paul's articles/blogs. I was enjoying reading this till I got to the line "All the computer people use Macs or Linux now. Windows is for grandmas, like Macs used to be in the 90s." Having used gmail since March 28, 05, gcal since it came out, and other web software as appropriate for a while, I'm a big believer in software-as-a-service because I hate the idea of having desktop software on one computer and not the other. I also own both, an Apple PowerBook and a Dell laptop. I find Windows a lot more keyboard friendly, since I like to fly around with both shortcut keys and the Mac just can't keep up with me. On the other hand, I love Mac's Zen-like environment and the rock solid BSD underneath it -- Windows can seem pretty cheesy with all its pop-up baloons and MS-DOS prompt. However, given the apps and hardware available for Windows, I still prefer Windows because I'm a developer and business guy. I also disagree that Windows is for grandmas. I mean, Paul, which world do you live in? Just because a niche of designers, developers and a few affluent folks use Apple, doesn't mean EVERYONE is using Macs. Your bias clearly shows through here. I personally am not biased to any particular hardware/OS because I use them all (even Ubuntu/Linux for servers). Having worked with 5 flavors of Unix since 1991, I feel equally comfortable with the nix world, Windows and Mac OS. In the end, Apple is a cult -- it always has been. Apple isn't any better of a company than Microsoft and neither is Google. I've always had a love-hate relationship with Microsoft. I hate how they try to break stuff (e.g. Java, JavaScript) but I absolutely don't mind using MS Office to get stuff done. And, the fact that I almost entirely use open source for my development/deployment and not feel hampered on Windows combined with the fact that most of my personal information management is done using gmail/gcal, I can use Microsoft to get the best of all world: i.e. MS Office, web 2.0 apps through Firefox, anything open source (e.g. eclipse, rails, mysql), etc., etc. I strongly believe OS will eventually become less relevant for desktops, whether it is Microsoft, Mac, or Linux. In the end, consumers have personal preferences and corporation want to make money. That's as simple as it gets. On June 2, 2006 (thanks to gmail's quick search engine for locating the email/date), I sent an email to a bunch of folks pointing them to Paul's "How to start a startup" article (http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html) http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html) because I absolutely loved it! On this article, I have to agree with the previous commenter that "Paul Graham is the Ann Coulter of the Web 2.0 world." :-(
  • KitDoc 20y ago
• Roybatty 20y ago
  I'll pass on whatever Paul is smoking. I guess there's a psychological condition (I'll coin it Slashdotitis), where the downfall of Microsoft is just right around the corner - or in Paul's case it has already happened. Here's a cluestick. HTML (even with AJAX) is not a freaking platform. Wake me up when Google has an actual platform. Until then, Paul can go live in the fantasy world with Larry Ellison where the networked thin client was going to take over years ago. Yawn.
• cK 20y ago
  You're a moron with an MBA. There is very little substance in what you said, just speculation. You clearly do not understand the Software and IT Services space.
  • pg 20y ago
    Calling me a moron is one thing, but accusing me of having an MBA is really too much.
    • JMiao 20y ago
      ZING!
    • mga 19y ago
      rotflmao!
• tijaska 20y ago
  Very insightful! Microsoft will become completely irrelevant once the desktop/laptop becomes history, which may take another 5 years. Mobile phones will have enough smarts to run the apps that most folks need, wherever they need them, and will be able to deliver them to big screen docking stations via Ajax web apps when we need to see the detail. Check my blog at http://trevors-trinkets.blogspot.com/2007/02/after-desktop-what.html http://trevors-trinkets.blogspot.com/2007/02/after-desktop-what.html and http://trevors-trinkets.blogspot.com/2007/03/mobilizing-mobiles.html http://trevors-trinkets.blogspot.com/2007/03/mobilizing-mobiles.html
• roark 20y ago
  If being "not feared" means being dead, then Google was never born. Who is afraid of Google anyways, except that they might misuse our trust by breaching our privacy ! People are no longer afraid of MS because technology has now grown into areas (e.g. web) where they can work without competing with MS.
• anonymoustroll 20y ago
  Microsoft may be dead, but it's also a zombie and it wants your brainesszzz....
• sumedh_inamdar 20y ago
  http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/macosx_leopard_preview.asp http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/macosx_leopard_preview.asp As far as I see around (in India) we hardly see any Mac PC's or laptops here...
• KitDoc 20y ago
  The only thing that I would add here, is that Microsoft still has a few cards up its sleeve. Aside from the cash reserves, they hired one important man, Ray Ozzie, to take over Gate's role and departure. Ozzie's knowledge, experience and visionary ability, especially in networking/Internet, means that they are not completely sunk. "If" the Microsoft board gives him the time, money and latitude, to express his creative genius. They have the ability to make a comeback. It's time for a shakeup at Microsoft. It should probably start with Ballmer's departure as well.
• Sushant_Madhab 20y ago
  Hi! Paul, You are so correct in your essay. I ditto you. I would say that, the time has come where "USERs" do not want standalone, unstructured or single sing on applications. I say that, its time for eWorking Facilities. Not to advert, if I could suggest is, please have a look at www.WorkACE.com. Its a smart eBusiness solution, with built in features of Intranet, Extranet, Groupware, Knowledge Management, Business Ecosystem Management, Project/Process Management, Supply Chain Management, Webmail, IM/Chat, Work Flow Management and eSupport, all compiled into a comprehensive and cognitive eWorking facility. Rgds, Sushant Madhab www.qxsystems.com
• carlco 20y ago
  well in a way it was good that steve jobs did get pushed out it gave him focus on nextstep and that is the bedrock of why apple have bounced back.
• jwalkernet 20y ago
  Perfect. Brilliant. Yes we have known it but you encapsulated it so well. At Atlassian we focus our attention on the still impressive accomplishments of Google and companies such those you fund and work with. The New World wants things lighter weight, cheaper, but with no trade off on usefulness. And without a salesman or any annoying popups or other crap. Thx Jeffrey www.radiowalker.com
• amirking 20y ago
  u didn't explain why u count MS out of the web 2.0 world. may be because as u confessed u never use MS products and are so unaware of what they are up to.
• krazyal 20y ago
  In a very strong way I think you are away out to lunch. The only people afraid of Microsoft is the Microsoft Haters out there who for some obscure reason, can't think much about anything except bashing MSoft If any of you knew anything about the software business, you would know that almost all the drive for making your product a great product is so M$oft will buy you out. Again for some silly reason a lot of the haters believe that all companies other than M$Soft are fair, reasonable and above board and that sure ain't true. Name me one company that M$oft took over than didn't make the owner a millionaire. Lets get real and realize that consumer's opinion is not worth zippo to all these companies.
• henryturner 20y ago
  Great essay but the death was previously called http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B629B28CD-9E0E-48CA-8E8B-243AA6E2CB92%7D&dist=lycos&siteid=lycos http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B629B28CD-9E0E-48CA-8E8B-243AA6E2CB92%7D&dist=lycos&siteid=lycos
• prwiding 20y ago
  I believe that paulgraham meant that Microsoft is a DEAD-END. My opinion as to what killed them: suicide by REGISTRY. While any operating system needs a file system, the usual critical lack is a DATABASE system. But instead of a (relatively) simple, open relational database, MS chose some key of hierarchical network database they called the Registry. This made Windows suitably arcane, but rediculously hard to manage and maintain. Coupled with the security holes, and the advent of a capable unix-like OS, makes Windows obsolete, if still operable.
• glah 20y ago
  Y Combinator is Dead. Why? Because all the little MeToo Point Oh companies it funded aren't making any money. So Paul Graham writes this article practically daring Microsoft to buy all Web 2.0 companies in the valley, hoping that a couple of his little darlings will also be scooped up. We should all be screaming "shill".
• spanky_monkey 20y ago
  The poverty of analysis and thought in this essay is best illustrated by the sentence: "There can only be one big man in town, and they're clearly it." I love reading the "Microsoft is dead" stories - there has been about 1 a year for the last 10 years or so. I remember when Netscape was going to rule the world - or AOL. I even recall that people seriously thought that a Palm Pilot would slay the giant. Oh how we laughed! And just because your tiny geek-chic niche all uses Macs doesn't mean that everyone does. Nor does using a Mac make you A) cooler B) smarter C) more attractive to the opposite sex D) more creative or E) qualified to make sweeping generalizations about industries and business you apparently know little about. Other than that, very interesting.
• fuzzyman 20y ago
  As an open-source developer (with Python) who uses Windows, Microsoft and their actions hardly ever seemed to feature in the things I was interested in or that were important to me. That actually changed when I got a job developing an application with IronPython (an open-source implementation of Python for .NET - funded by Microsoft). Now I actually use .NET, and I have to admit that it isn't bad. Generally a sane API, and C# is nicer than Java. Still, when I develop my own projects I use cPython, and Microsoft is now 'slightly; relevant whereas for the last few years they have seemed completely irrelevant.
• Zendor 20y ago
  What a small view of the world you have. So, since all you see are macs therefore MS is dead. This also resembles the all I see is linux so MS is dead to. LOL. It's 2007, Why is MS still in business then? MS keeps moving forward. The battle ground is not the os anymore but what you will do with it. I do not see Apple creating there version of .NET and getting the largest amount of developers on board to work with it. Linux has a long way to go before Gradma can use it daily, Many gradmas ARE using MS to blog, share pics and more everyday. And once the other contenders get to that point, it will gradmas PROGRAMMING for windows. So say what you like. You know deep down they can't beat MS, MS will just adapt and create a more compelling reason for the majority to work with them. There is room for everyone. Just a bigger room is needed for Microsoft!
• Zendor 20y ago
  What a small view of the world you have. So, since all you see are macs therefore MS is dead. This also resembles the all I see is linux so MS is dead to. LOL. It's 2007, Why is MS still in business then? MS keeps moving forward. The battle ground is not the os anymore but what you will do with it. I do not see Apple creating there version of .NET and getting the largest amount of developers on board to work with it. Linux has a long way to go before Gradma can use it daily, Many gradmas ARE using MS to blog, share pics and more everyday. And once the other contenders get to that point, it will gradmas PROGRAMMING for windows. So say what you like. You know deep down they can't beat MS, MS will just adapt and create a more compelling reason for the majority to work with them. There is room for everyone. Just a bigger room is needed for Microsoft!
• TechNoWeb 20y ago
  well with Microsoft holding a good 90% of the desktop market and most schools only have classes for Microsoft software i just don't see Microsoft as dead and not anything in the near future this article was well just a bunch of FUD
• theManMyth 20y ago
  If this article was renamed, "Microsoft Potentially Faces New Challenges and more Intense Competition in the Upcoming Future," then, sure. But "Microsoft is Dead?" Give me a break. How can the most profitable and recognized software company on the planet be "dead?" Could it be stagnant? Yeah; I suppose. Maybe it is stagnant. Or maybe you're just so caught up in your "hip" counter-culture $2,000 iMac lifestyle that you are blinded to the plain facts. The facts, like, that 99% of businesses and developers EXCLUSIVELY use Windows. And 99% of all homes. And 90% of all students. I don't understand how any company with around 90% of the entire marketshare could be considered dead. You made some good points but ultimately this whole "essay," is just off-base hogwash for Apple fanboys.
• nadeem 20y ago
  I actually thought it was an excellent piece. I don't necessarily think that Microsoft is down and out for the count but equal they do seem to be playing catchup a lot. It was a great little piece Paul. http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2007/04/08/microsoft-is-dead/ http://www.virtualchaos.co.uk/blog/2007/04/08/microsoft-is-dead/
• prasad 20y ago
  One word comment would be "Rubbish". I have seen articles like these for past 10 years. Please note that its the consumer who drives the market. Unless there is someone who makes another "Windows XP" alike or better software and have the power/synergy to capture atleast 30-40% market. This aint going to work. Just my 0.02 cents, thanks.
• nkais 20y ago
  I can't understand why MS is so hated vis-a-vis Apple. I've had a software made for Win 3.1 run on Win-XP, but a device driver had to be updated so that my wife's MAC-book could identify the printer. Why is there any reason to think that a monopoly under Apple would be better than one under MS (in the 90s)? The reason why Google rocks is that its not a monopoly. It makes chunkloads of money and then some more. But it does not have a 96% market share of search or maps or video or any other service. And its the same reason why Yahoo or Amazon or Ebay rock. They are leaders and profitable and everything that 90s-MS was, but they aren't monopolies. My comment is from the point of view of a consumer, not a competitor... so this isn't really a reply to the original post.
• rick 20y ago
  Stop talking about young vs old! It's irrelevant as Microsoft.
• sriganesh 20y ago
  Can't agree more! One of their partners in creating that world of monopoly was Intel. Remember the Wintel combo. For one, there are other chip companies (AMD esp) which has not allowed a monopoly situation. Intel itself is now available on Apple. Now, MS might be loosing because slowly the rules of the game are changing. IBM - Mainframe, MS - Desktop. Get it. Cellphone/mobile - ??? Maybe it's still early but we may have to watch out who will be the dangerous player on mobile. That is if it becomes the device for - computing, entertainment, and communication.
• johnlongawa642 20y ago
  You nailed it, Paul. The bad reaction is akin to what you'd expect from a dowager having been goosed by an upstart who crashed her stuffy fund-raiser. -john longawa
• BrandonM 20y ago
  There is one high-selling area of software that I can never imagine being separated from the desktop: activity-monitoring anti-virus suites. So for all those people to be able to run their anti-virus programs, they are going to need Windows, and therefore, Windows will stay relevant.
• gcacic 20y ago
  MS dead - yes, just because it has no good moves for a long time now. In my humble opinion last turn point were the times of the first browser's wars. BitGeek wrote this - "That's a very sick and twisted view of the world-- and it is from Karl Marx." - it is a bit out of context here, but stil. Yes M$ dying has to do somethng with Karl Marx, too - let me put aside "sick and twisted" for a moment. Not even prime flagships of economy, which of BitGeek knows about, weren't able to undermine one simple sentence from Marx's "Das Kapital" - Only (human) labour and labour only can produce new value. Not money - labour. There is no need, I presume, to point out the quantity of labour pumped into the "market" since early 1990's on radically different principals then ones driving the dead. Another view could also come from the economy principals. Shortly it is a story of smart and dumb monopols. The smart ones optimize the production level - the dumb ones optimize the profit. The dead rocketed profit (and extra-profit) sky high. Personally I do not thik that the future is in web-based IT. It simply is not cost effective - why the hack should I have powerfull desktop just to run application on the server. For me it server centric IT was already seen and the come back is (could be) no more than a cycle in everladting evolution of IT.
• kieranw 20y ago
  The rest of us will just think that you are pushing your agenda, and therefore, your own view of the world. Is it a coincidence a Web 2.0 investor supports an evangelically blinkered approach to non Web 2.0 solutions. I am a fantastic believer in history telling us about the future. And in this case, history says, Microsoft will always be key to a desktop centric world. And desktop centricity is cyclical. For now Web 2.0 seems to have the baton, but as we nove into a very rich multi-media world we will become constrained by the broadband pipes. This will push apps, content, and everything else back to the user device, be it a Windows PC or a Windows Pocket PC. Apple stole the march with the single purpose iPod (don't pretend video or anything else on the iPod is a killer App), but Microsoft still own the multi-purpose device. DRM has been the Achilles Heel of Microsoft. As they have come back from many Anti-Trust cases they attempted to sidestep more brouhaha in the world of Digital Media, and have attempted to play fair (don't get me wrong I know they usually do not play fair). This has allowed Apple to gain the upperhand in Music Devices. But, as Apple are now breaking the mold on this to allow DRM-free sales from EMI, they in turn will have just given Microsoft the opening it will need to reinforce its position. It wont be success through intent, as I believe that the Zune player will fail. But a new competitive ecosystem of devices will lead everything back to the desktop as the hub. No matter what, no-one is going to trust their personal memories, be it music, video or photo's entirely to the Web. They will share it there, but not leave it there. Microsoft is back where they were when Netscape first launched, they are the slow lumbering laggard. But as history shows us, they turned themselves around, and owned (however briefly) the mindset of everyone who had money to spend (and this is not typically your 15-year old Web 2.0 consumer with no money), it was the corporates, with their large cheque books. Google are moving more and more to follow the Microsoft lead. Microsoft is far from dead, but like all parents who have given life to others (such as Google, albeit through removed ways), they from time to time will be less involved in their Children's lives. But, they will always retain some criticality in their lives. MS will never really die in our lifetimes. They just move from being the soul point of attention. Good luck to your startups, but imagining them operating in a world where they do not know and respect the importance of Microsoft, and try to emulate or utilise them in their goals, seems like a recipe for failure to me.
  • dht 20y ago
• skp 20y ago
  Super awesome ! @M$ : Web 2.0 is no Bubble.
• oneildg 20y ago
  Microsoft is not dead. They are smart. Do not forget that they own significant shares in Apple. It was Microsoft that helped Apple come back. If you take a close look you may find that Apple is Microsofts support. Strange angle I agree. With Apple being percieved as strong, Microsoft can not be suide as easily for anything they do to control or manipulate the market. Deffinately they are not publicly viewed as a Manopoly any more. Take a close look from this direction and you may find another good article to write. What has helped the market more than Apple or Linux is this: desktop applications have standardized and the conversion tools make even programs like excell (with macros and arrays) interchangable with other nock off products. Thanks goes to the unknowns that supply open source that is interchangeable with MS products. If this was not avaialble every business would be locked into one desktop and that would likely still be MS Office.
• Some1 20y ago
  You certanly have something realy messed up. MS dead ? Wake up! How can u even compare MS wich has 90% of the market with Apple wuch haves like 5% to 7% well that's rubbish. How can u think that ... Appple is evolving and leaving Windows behind.. hm.. do u think that Bill G. Will allow that ? Have u heard/read about the interview of Windows Vienna? Sorry "my frind" but u are.. simply wrong.
• cs 20y ago
  From Eastern Europe ::: for us, the real life hackers with only 1% of your GDP, it is obvious to _USE_ a software or any IP product, service rather than paying for it. We have money only for cheap hardware (forget macbook), broadband, and maybe some for hosting. These trends represent the future: 4/5 of world population the chinese, indian, arabs, or latinos won't have more money to spend going online. From this entire business scene only Google is able to get money from us. We are willing to pay only for Google Ads because they are cheap, straight, and delivers ROI next minute. We go connected for nothing, we create for nothing and we get revenue by partnering Google. Any other company who does not follow this business model is, or will be dead. Nobody ever will pay for any tools to create an online business but we will share our revenue with who generates us profit.
• scd 20y ago
  Two comments: 1) I think you underestimate the importance of Firefox in Microsoft's decline in importance. It is Firefox that makes sure that all those Web-based apps aren't held hostage to Microsoft's implementation of web standards. 2) Whilst its all about the web it isn't all about the browser. Ajax-y web apps show the potential for ignoring platform specific APIs (such as Win32)--especially when you don't try to mimic platform specific behaviour (the big problem with Swing-based apps: stop pretending to be a native desktop app! Rejoice in being a x-platform web app!). But ajax inside Firefox/Safari isn't going to be enough for me to abandon all of my 'rich' Mac OS X apps: if you want me to put all of my brain in your web-based wiki or PIM, give the same 'richness' and sophistication of design that I can get with VoodooPad, DevonThink, and Curio.
• professorguy 20y ago
  Anyone who cares can have fast Internet access now. Um, no. I care to have fast access (I am a network administrator at a hospital so it'd be useful). But I cannot have it. Therefore your comment does not reflect reality. I'm sure that's true in the city where you live, but come to Dalton, NH and tell me again how I'm supposed to get high speed access. DSL? Nope. Cable? Ha! Satellite? Not on my wooded hillside. Magic internet fairies? Oh, that must be what you're talking about!
• larsw 20y ago
  Paul Graham is dead. Dead in the sense that I won't read his ever increasing bsht anymore. --larsw
• costar 20y ago
  Dead or not, the company is buying up a lot of property. http://www.costar.com/News/Article.aspx?id=AE40DC75921BEB714FCC9D697D42A6F2 http://www.costar.com/News/Article.aspx?id=AE40DC75921BEB714FCC9D697D42A6F2
• girl 20y ago
  I think since I'm also part of your "younger generation" I can see the validity in your argument that no one uses Windows anymore, but as I'm beginning to look for jobs and as i meet more and more people outside of my tech bubble, I can see that the general public still attaches itself to Windows OS. The more tech inclined are all about Linux and the like, but those that are all about enjoying youtube and checking email could care less.
• dave59 20y ago
  I went to one of Microsoft's rollout conferences recently -- to get a free copy of Office. The new Word really is better than the old Word, and--call me grandma--I still like it--I'm used to it. I sat at a big table eating lunch with my fellow small business types who came for the same thing, and listened to the MS power users talk about looking around and seeing, and realizing how old they, and the rest of the loyalists were. True. The loyal MS IT guys were there in force, to applaud Bill warmly. But it wasn't a big under-thirty audience. The presenters all talked about the many new enterprise features of Vista and the servers, the tightest possible integration of everything a huge organization needs to control every detail of work. And how much they hate pocket flash drives -- those enemies of corporate security. And all of us Office freeloaders smiled and nodded, and ate their sandwiches.
• Jordi 20y ago
  One of the clear signs that show how wrong they are on strategy is Vista. Vista is everything against web 2.0 with a web 2.0 face. All control and get attached as much as you can to your Desktop. They need to get some people from Google to use their cash wisely. Jordi Vallejo
• CerberuS 20y ago
  Well, I have to be honest, I loved the article, it gave "kind of" the same information but from a different view. I agree to the most of what has been said, and I do NOT disagree with the rest, but it seems to be little bit early to say so, and I am talking about Web Applications, I teach computer technical certification curriculum (A+, Network+ Server+, and yes some of MCSE's courses as well), when my students (the young ones mostly) ask me what career path do you advice us to pursuit, I say IMHO, MS is an old news, look how Google is changing the way we live, the way we think, I would say, go for web development (AJAX), yes there would still be need for C# and the rest of the other programming languages (at least at the server side and the client OS), but the real volume would be at the web. The part on which I think it is too early to say so is : On other part of the planet (and I am sure in some part of the US as well as I've read in some of the comments below) the fast internet connection is not available (if any in some parts of the world), I agree that one day sooner or later this is inevitable, but it might not be as soon as (NOW). Somewhere else we have discussed this issue few months ago, it can be found here. http://www.syrian-it.net/forum/index.php?topic=25.0 http://www.syrian-it.net/forum/index.php?topic=25.0 Regards CerberuS
• carstenklein 20y ago
  Nice essay, however, I do not actually think that M$ is dead. They are actually recovering from a very chaotic phase of restructuring after the old king was declared dead and with the new ones taking over lead of the company. Not that I like that company very much, I'd rather go without them as they are not only causing shadows to fall on an otherwise fertile ground, but they also manage to dry out those fertile grounds by taking over and taking in. And now that they have finally found that they could do patents by means of bribing and replicating existing technology and forge that into something that would even more so protect their grounds, i.e. the global IT market, it seems to me as if we were in for something more, even more treacherous than what we have seen so far. Now, what is true is that M$ has long led the pack and they for sure have left that pole position of being the scapegoat running, but they sure will manage to take the lead back by simply replicating existing technology and research. By that they have gone through a process of accepting other people's technological advances and by incorporating them into their infrastructure and overall corporate culture they will slowly try to regain their old status. It would be a nice move, however, to give them the death blow by asking them, in court, how many LOC of open source software they have included in their past projects by simply rewriting the existing code?
• monkeyshines 20y ago
  Please, Adobe, PLEASE GIVE US PHOTOSHOP FOR LINUX!!! Gimp sucks and I hate Windows, and I can't afford a Mac and I don't want to throw away 2 perfectly useful laptops just so I can dump Wintel. Gimme Photoshop on Linux (Ubuntu) and I'm done with Win.
• josephroberts 20y ago
  Hi. While I totally agree with your conclusion, you and so many other "analysts" totally miss the #1, the premier reason why Microsoft has been dead for a long time ( 5 years). Microsoft had a massive leadership (not brain) drain during the late 1990's web gold rush. They've never recovered. And, at a time when their girth most demanded leadership, it was gone. Long gone. To Google, Apple, and few dozen other top SV firms.
• vijaypullur 20y ago
  Paul, Why kill Microsoft if all you care for is the browser? Install Firefox, dont upgrade to Vista or later...Just have one desktop icon and start menu program...Firefox. Microsoft is not dead till this can be viable. Vijay Dekoh
• lmasanti 20y ago
  "Actors and musicians occasionally make comebacks, but technology companies almost never do. " Although not in the form and style of Apple's comeback, I think that IBM has "reshaped" itself in a very intelligent way, not reling anymore in "monopolic" strategies but being really competitive. I do not know if M$ can do this morphing.
• froggyking 20y ago
  Firefox is also definitely a HUGE contributer to the downfall of Microsoft in its web-based assets. Had Internet Explorer updated more frequently, kept up with RSS (something just recently introduced), and integrated it more into the OS, perhaps it would still be gasping for air. Also, it should have continued the fight in Apple's OS X territory for Internet Explorer. Safari was a baby at the time. Microsoft whimped out for no reason. It's funny that Microsoft funded Apple in the 90s when hope seemed frail. (Not the Microsoft is going anywhere anytime soon.)
• charmained 20y ago
  This is the most BRILLIANT article I have ever read! Publish it!
• snick 20y ago
  I've never understood the fear and loathing of Microsoft, now or in the past. Microsoft isn't perfect but they've done more than any other company (including Apple) to raise the level of software. They've been the benchmark to which all other software companies compare themselves. Microsoft may not have startup cachet or support of the "fanboys" (of Mac, linux, google, or whatever the latest anti-Microsoft parade is rallying around) but let's hope it sticks around for a long time to come.
• yousuck 20y ago
  Would've been good read on April First ... reading it now, its not even funny, the blogger is complete idiot. "We didn't invite Microsoft and they didn't bother contacting us" LOL, because they don't give a shit about you =) Microsoft FTW.
• dmj 20y ago
  Sorry, you've been scooped by ten years, and by someone even older: http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/msapogee.html http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/msapogee.html
• abhilashgp 20y ago
  I don't think its valid, saying, that all applications will be deployed off the web; that would be very wrong. The fact that Google docs hasn't really clicked just points to the fact that certain software makes sense to be offline. One reason why; user sometimes wants to be very close to his data. The key to the future i believe is the right mix of offline and online capabilities in applications. Microsoft has been kind of late in putting offline capabilities to many of its products. But that doesn't mean they are dead; they have the resources and ability to create paradigm shifts in this business. The fact that a person like Ray Ozzie (who is more or less associated with network computing and collaboration) is now overlooking the software giant's product teams also sends indications that Microsoft will start looking into the online/offline match. Infact the concept of "internet services disrupted", term coined by Ray Ozzie in a recent talk, precisely shows the direction in which Microsoft is headed.
• Armin 20y ago
  Hi Paul, Joel Spolsky came to a similar conclusion back in 2004: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html I think that is more true than ever, When your primary computer access is via a browser, the OS (and standalone applications on top) does not matter any more.
• test 20y ago
  As a younger (20's) half reader who also happens to be a pro photographer, I think the hyperbole of "all apps on the web!" is silly. Tell me, when will my upload speed equal the speed of my 10,000 RPM Raptor HD's? My Core 2 Duo? Man, I can't sit around and wait while 75MB RAW files are uploaded to someone else's computer (that's all a server is, after all). This is the day and age of the personal super computer. Outsourcing apps to the web and cheering their stripped down interfaces isn't progress to me. It's like watching your neighbor's HD TV through the window with binoculars.
  • raiken 20y ago
    Yes I agree with you on that. Only I am 18 and I am a game developer/photoshop artist. Also I have tried alot of these online sites that have programs like phtoshop or office. They are not anywhere near as good as the ones you install on your pc or mac or whatever you use. Also I have tried out a mac and I didn't like it as much as I like my windows pc. Manily for the price and the fact that you can't upgrade it yourself.
• BenKittrell 20y ago
  I just don't understand why everyone is so concerned about MS vs Google vs Apple. MS sells software, Google sells ads, and Apple sells hardware. Anything else they do is just to sell their core business. Each company is extremely successful, and in no danger of going away anytime soon. Paul saying that he's surprised to see someone running Windows is proof that this is a very big planet, and there's lots of room for all kinds of love.
• chuck 20y ago
  Seems way to early to declare them dead. Have you never watched a basketball game where momentum shifts and the dominant team is on the ropes, but it's only halftime. There's plenty of time to come storming back. In other words, the game isn't over. It's way too early to call them dead. Based on your assumptions, if they are indeed dead or headed inexorably in that direction, then why aren't we all using thin clients connected to superfast pipes running ajaxified code? Perhaps, it doesn't always work that well? I guess all these web2.0 companies, y-combinator included, didn't use powerpoint for their deck? Or the execs don't run windows mobile 5.0 on their smartphone? You make a lot of valid points but you omit a lot in the analysis and you get kinda religous about it all. When a team declares victory just by taking the lead... you know that team is scared.
• chuck 20y ago
  Seems way to early to declare them dead. Have you never watched a basketball game where momentum shifts and the dominant team is on the ropes, but it's only halftime. There's plenty of time to come storming back. In other words, the game isn't over. It's way too early to call them dead. Based on your assumptions, if they are indeed dead or headed inexorably in that direction, then why aren't we all using thin clients connected to superfast pipes running ajaxified code? Perhaps, it doesn't always work that well? I guess all these web2.0 companies, y-combinator included, didn't use powerpoint for their deck? Or the execs don't run windows mobile 5.0 on their smartphone? You make a lot of valid points but you omit a lot in the analysis and you get kinda religous about it all. When a team declares victory just by taking the lead... you know that team is scared.
• tbone 20y ago
  Ok, but are we trading Microsoft's monopoly for Google's? Google essentially controls (or plans to control) search and online advertising, which of course feed off each other like Windows and Office did. Just becuase Google has Web 2.0 street cred doesn't mean they are benign.
• chuck 20y ago
  there's no comment link for your cliff notes (http://www.paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html) http://www.paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html) followup so i will comment here. you seem to be back-pedaling with this cliff-notes post. so you are going to be the first to "call it"... call what exactly? that seems to be your cliff notes discussion... it required several paragraphs to define what you mean. nobody is going to remember what you exactly called. you say the following... "When I said that Microsoft was dead, I meant they had, like IBM before them, passed across into this underworld." so you are basically saying now that ibm is dead... in which you define it as "people at the leading edge of the software business no longer have to think about them." i guess many would disagree with you on what "leading edge" or relevance in software is about. if you think these web2.0 companies, then perhaps, then many will disagree with you whether there's much new tech coming out of these web 2.0 companies.
• dougmartin 20y ago
  Short sighted. Although Linux is making significant rounds for servers in the corporate world Microsoft is still the office PC leader. web 2.0 will never break into this coporate niche just due to the flow of information out of the secure office. However this is not to say the application can not come IN house. This is how they must be sold to corporations. That and the price of training new hires on the linux based platform with web apps. If enough companies train enough people then the "we use microsoft because everyone knows it" excuse will be out the window.
• yako 20y ago
  If Paul ever tried new Yahoo mail, he would found Gmail pretty lame. As far as Ajax utilization goes at least.
• belhassen 20y ago
  yes this is true. the desktop has gone. but you make your analysis trough a little hole in the wall (window?) from this little hole it seems that web2.0 euphoria is indeed due to microsoft monopol lost. High bandwith - everything on the net - microsoft application cloned online.unleashed creativity applied to no rule game, again.. ok. now walk back and see how much microsoft is more than desktop software and has already took submarine advanced positions in the future concurrential world.(PWC, NFC). Desktop - all net - ? dont underestimate people with glasses. Inside the bubble - insider joy. outside the bubble - outsider again.
• bmcginty 20y ago
  I am disappointed that you came up with The Cliff Notes. John Dvorak has been saying that for a while. Thanks for the link to http://live.com. http://live.com. I typed in "microsoft is dead" and got a whole lot of irrevelant articles. Google had yours at the top along with Dvorak's. Gave me a good laugh.
• alphanum 20y ago
  What a bunch of morons and whiners! Microsoft was and is a great company that change the way everybody work with computers. All Google have created is web advertisement tax. It provides nothing you did not had before, but you still crawl to their web site to find the page you were watching yesterday, because you was too lazy to bookmark it. Google already is reading your searches, your emails, and your files. One day they will own you and they will tax you all like they are taxing businesses.
• gRm 20y ago
  Old news... 2005? Man you HAVE been under a rock haven't you? Hacker? Sigh...ok here's some coaching for you the next time you want to front. 1. - "Hackers" don't call themselves hackers, poseurs call themselves hackers. (and anyone reading this saying "but I'M a hacker.." guess wha? YOU r a poseur.) 2. - Web 2.0 is just another BUZZWORD. Like AJAX, LAMP and (gasp) blog. Duh, it's the web dummy, it's made of ALL KINDS OF TECHNOLOGIES. 3. - PHOTOSHOP over the web? Not for a LONG time buddy, IF EVER. Oh wait, lemme guess: "The network IS the computer" right? When will you hypemasters get the drift that not EVERY app is right for a BROWSER? Let me put this nice and easy for you, SOME APPS WILL GO TOTALLY WEB, MOST WON'T. You can't whittle every peg to fit your web-hole...you webhole. 4. - Google became BMOC BEFORE their IPO. If you were any good as a venture capitalist you would have seen that. 5. - SURPRISED to see lamers running windows? What, did you think they would be running Linux (sorry, GNU)? Not everyone wants to spend the $$ for a Mac. (Disclaimer: I do.) C'mon man, smarten up. Oh, and yeah, IBM lost it's monopoly WAAAAY B4 2005. I think it was called OS2...maybe they should have hired a rock band...anyone have one of those Win95 discs with Weezer on it? You were right about one thing. This is OLD NEWS. Dumbass.
• vcz 20y ago
  PG: I already know what the reaction to this essay will be. Half the readers will say that Microsoft is still an enormously profitable company, and that I should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in our insular little "Web 2.0" bubble. The other half, the younger half, will complain that this is old news. You may know a lot about computers, but your math sucks. Try factoring in the third half of your readers [those of us who read your words and think, "forget the Lone Ranger. When I grow up I'm marrying THIS guy"]!
• thisissilly 20y ago
  Microsoft is dead ? Haa Think XBOX Think SQL SERVER Think Longhorn server Think IPTV Now which one of this is not there and wait til play talbe comes into market..
• yuvipanda 20y ago
  LMAO. You haven't seen WPF, have you? Or, do you really know how things are inside Microsoft now? And, btw, I'm pretty much in the younger half of the population(16), and I'd much rather work at Microsoft which allows you to blog and conducts events in countries outside the US than at Google where you aren't even allowed to say what the dominant color in the data center is... P.S. You rock, but this one made me LMAO. Tell me it was a late April Fool's joke.
• DanB 20y ago
  This is developing news, and there are a few interesting consequences: 1. Microsoft's software is unmaintainable, without throwing titanic amounts of money at it. This means that if Microsoft experiences declining sales on its basic products (Windows, Office), the products themselves will disappear. In a decade, Wine may be all that is left of Windows. 2. The price of Windows is increasing, as the price of computers is plummeting. A $2000 computer with a $100 operating system works. A $500 computer with a $200 operating system doesn't. Windows should cost no more than $20 today. Microsoft's model is clearly unsustainable. 3. The biggest benefit from Microsoft alternatives isn't replacing Windows, the benefit is being able to do things that were never possible with Windows. Linux bootable CD/flash is a wonderful approach for single-purpose devices, which is what most of the world wants almost all computers to be. I've been programming computers for 40 years now, and this is about the third major transition I've been through. It is by far the most fun.
• nelsonj 20y ago
  Re: your comment about Steve Jobs, I don't think Apple would be the company it is today unless Steve was pushed out. I think he learned a lot in the wilderness and came back a prodigal son with something to prove. As such he was a lot more motivated and had more backing than he would have had if he hadn't left.
• wayne01 20y ago
  I somehow don't think that Microsoft are simply going to go away. When 95% of the worlds people use a Microsoft OS including big business with great application support and the ability to buy cheap hardware (which Apple cannot replicate) Microsoft will be dominant. And now they have a fairly decent OS which is comparable to OSX, it just isn't compelling enough to switch any more. At least for the people I know....
• cleenwe 20y ago
  Now that the storm of comments died down a bit, I'd like to say that I agree with you. I've been attending the yearly Fosdem in Brussels, Belgium (an open source convention) for several years now, and this year a lot of the people working on open source had Macs. As a matter of fact the Macs were everywhere. Like you said, the geeks already switched to Mac. Many people have a PC, because someone they know advised them to get one, and because they knew that they could get help from the geek they knew if they got in trouble, but the geeks switched to Mac now. Combine this with the fact that those same geeks are telling people to stay away from Vista, and it doesn't look good for Microsoft. Just my two cents from Belgium.
• will_lin 20y ago
  I agree that Microsoft is dead. The biggest reason is simply that Bill Gates is leaving.
• Pakspectator 20y ago
  and reincarnation is just round the corner, perhaps. The Pakistani Spectator
• chambcm 20y ago
  This is the dumbest article I have read in a long time.
• crappydeli 20y ago
  Microsoft died before the mainframe. There's irony for you.
• cogitate 20y ago
  i agree with 50 yo Bob G.apple is superficial too. only when they go GPL will they leverage "web x.0".MS is old news. -monish
• connellybarnes 19y ago
  Microsoft will linger on as long as games are based on DX. They might be able to do some additional damage with their browser monopoly. But I agree: fresh air is blowing in the door, and programmers are getting a feeling that it at last is spring-time.
  • connellybarnes 19y ago
    Wow, OK many of these comments are kind of like disrespectful to Paul Graham because they kind of indicate that many people have learned absolutely nothing from him. Wow. That's really depressing.
    • connellybarnes 19y ago
      Or see http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ . The point is, if you're not talking about games, Microsoft is basically irrelevant to the way that the majority of people use computers.
• JohnF 19y ago
  I think one of the major contributors for the change of impressions of MSFT between older techies and younger is Linux. For us older guys, MSFT ate everyone alive during it's hayday - Borland, Novell, Quarterdeck, GEM, Amiga, and so on. It seemed that no one - not even IBM - could compete with MSFT and survive. Linux thrives and it's the younger generation of techies that have carried on this battle in an unstoppable fashion. Curiousity + frustration + dogged determinism has led to a people powered movement that could not be crushed by money, FUD or other corporate methods. Democracy and anarchism is the antidote to corporatism and fascism.
• gggggdfgdfg 19y ago
  Your claim that no-one uses Windows anymore is a bit, eh, out of touch with reality. Even though many web designers and web programmers use Macs, the majority of businesses still run Windows on their desktops.
• yfain 19y ago
  I blogged on the subject at http://yakovfain.javadevelopersjournal.com/microsoft_is_not_dead_it_just_has_a_flu.htm http://yakovfain.javadevelopersjournal.com/microsoft_is_not_dead_it_just_has_a_flu.htm Yakov Fain
• Rares 19y ago
  Hey Paul, Just because Microsoft sucks right now in Internet stuff and is not that flashy like the cute AJAX startups (who are dying like flies), doesn't means too much, we need to see how the winds are blowing: a. You can't build an Office with AJAX. AJAX is too hard to program, relative to the functionality you get out of it. Heh, I am sure I will get a lot of smiles for this. The keyword is "relative". Btw, I have been doing AJAX in 2001, and it sucked big time. To build a WebOffice, you need something much more reliable, faster and powerful than the shitty JavaScript. A development environment with static compile time checking, better control of machine resources, faster. A FLASHy virtual machine for example. Google Apps (Sheets and Docs) are nothing more than toys, and they are locked in pit. They cannot grow larger than they currently are in an incremental manner. It is a pity Google did not snatch Macromedia, for lack of vision. Now Microsoft is building their own lightweight virtual machine, for exactly this purpose: deliver large scale apps to the web. b. .NET binding to the OS (the binding of Windows GUI to .NET 3.0). That's the single most aggresive move I have ever seen from a company. It goes like this: we are a monopolist of the OS market. Should you want to develop for our OS (which you must), you MUST use our developments tools and proprietary languages, which do not work on any other OSes. The monopoly is self-reinforcing, with one more leg added. The plan of the MS new boss is far-fetched (they mentioned 10 years), but it is sound. The seeds are in place and the wind is blowing Microsoft's way, just give them time to grow. So, I will start to respect Google's strategy the moment they push for the control of their underlying platform, making that little virtual machine. Regards, Rares
• carverjd 19y ago
  Another way Microsoft has shot its self in the foot began in 2000 with the release of Office 2000, then a year later Office XP then within 18 months Office 2003. Were they trying to milk the cow dry. That is why corporations are in a mass exodus from Office to other alternatives.
• cmcfrank 19y ago
  I personally have had enough of Microsoft's business practices, DRM, security, constant updates and hype, and have been reviewing alternative operating systems. I have settled (with full knowledge of the Novell Microsoft "agreement") on openSUSE 10.2 for the time being and so far have been very satisifed with the results. The Vista driven "leave all your obsolete hardware at the end of the driveway for garbage pickup" mentality doesn't wash. SUSE is running just fine on an old 1Ghz Athlon. I urge others to try some sort of current Linux distro (try more than one) and experience it firsthand.
• jcconnor 19y ago
  I recall Mr. Gates in the mid to late 90's talking about the impact the Internet was going to have on their business model and their efforts to be at the forefront of that. The problem was, and always has been, that they couldn't and can't change their entrenched business model for a new one. Typical to the Innovator's Dilemna, an entrenched organization cannot easily remodel its' business practices to meet new challenges. IBM has, to some extent, but the premier example is, obviously, Apple. In the cases of IBM and Apple they had to undergo an almost complete demise of the company to fight their way to a new approach. I'm willing to bet that a similar situation will come about in the case of Microsoft. The only question is will they (like the others I mentioned) be able to recover in time or will they be the Wang of this century?
• stevenm12345 19y ago
  4/24/07 sundays BARRONS stated MS poor sales with new os offering (VISTA) walmarts lcd tv price cut cause big shake up in tech sales. LISTS retail closings etc. got vista at closing comp usa 20% off awhile back... its linux with windows name (protected mode) works fine! MS is now to busy with the MS FOUNDATION and that BURKSHIRE guy from OMAHA to care about WINDOWS or computers. I'll bet VISTA is the end of it! THEY HAVE OTHER FISH TO FRY......
• maverick 19y ago
  This is a poor article from Paul. I don't know why does he engage in this sort of stuff. Anyway Microsoft is maybe "off the spot" today in some popular stuff, but being "off the spot" is hardly equal to being dead. Microsoft acumulated so much value in their products/services today (built by them and assisted by the whole industry) that it would be crazy to think they are dead. And don't forget that lots of those smart emerging engineers from India, Pakistan etc. end up at Microsoft, soon they will produce interesting results. They have the desktop and without the desktop no browser can run, and they have a large part of the server too and server is where things really matters today, plus development tools & environments. Time will tell...
• mmiller 19y ago
  Your thesis is based on the idea that Microsoft is dead because nobody fears them anymore. I think this is the wrong way to look at it. Does fear = relevance? It can, but how many people fear IBM? I doubt many. IBM is not dead. It's come back from the ashes of the late 1980s. They used to be feared, but I don't think that's the case anymore. Probably the only company that does fear them is Sun. I think one reason people are less afraid of Microsoft is they're doing things that are less scary. I agree with one commenter that customers might fear them more than entreprenuers do. They're gradually making their client technologies more cross-platform, not Windows specific. Customer requests were probably a big part of that, but it may reflect a change of consciousness on the part of Microsoft's workforce, too. I think Microsoft will remain relevant, just less scary. I think Google's gotten a little scary with the deal they made to censor search results in China. They found an exception to their "don't be evil" motto.
• hhall 19y ago
  Microsoft feels secure because of its momentum. How many complacent companies have lost their markets to more agile and inventive competitors? Microsoft is not a technology inventor; it notices a growing market and comes in late. This worked in the past because its operating system and office systems lived on virtually every desk top and because it could undercut competitor prices. Now they are facing a competitor that is also on every desktop and offers its products for free. Hard to undercut that. Even worse, this competitor is very inventive and is a comparable size. "Take away their oxygen" is the phrase Bill Gates once described as the way of handling competitors. Whose oxygen is going to be taken away this time?
• krischan68 19y ago
  I didn't read all 411 comments, but I think saying that the desktop was dead in a general sense (due to AJAX) and cite Apple with OS X (core asset besides the iPod is OS X as desktop!) as a nail in Microsoft's coffin seems somewhat contradictory to me. Btw.: I don't think that desktop apps are really dead. System file assets/album/playlist integration (iLife suite) or the comfort of a desktop UI (e.g. better shortcut integration - which pro doesn't work with time-saving Photoshop shortcuts) will be hard to mimick in an AJAX, browser-based setting.
• bobb 19y ago
  This is really silly stuff. Microsoft is successful because they deal with all the messy stuff around a platform - 3rd party vendors, APIs, integration, training, blah blah blah...Just take a look at Google's online software and you will see that it sorely lacks competitive features. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Google says "I give up" when it comes to providing a platform for the proliferation of devices that will not end soon. Add to it the scattershot nature of their search engine (still based on text search, unable to find stuff such as "middle aged female authors from the 13th century") and you see Google for what it is - a company that has made a huge amount of money from advertising - period. Do they have some cool technology - yes. So did Ashton Tate - does anyone remember the company that was the worlds largest software vendor in 1990? Not really...
• shosie 19y ago
  as an IP lawyer frequently adverse to MSFT, i can assure you that it is not dead quite yet. on the essay itself, as thoughtful as we have come to expect, I suppose the relevant question is what will the next "black swan" event be?
• ex_libris 19y ago
  The number one caboose to for companies to switch platform from Windows to Linux is the that the employees are reluctant to the switch. They had a hard time just to get adopted to computers in general (Windows) from type writes and are terrified for a change. When the people from the 1960 retire there's nothing to hold companies back from switching desktop platforms.
• bellboy 19y ago
  You missed the point about MS's release of .Net.Aimed to reach over and better Java style. MS sales even targetted co's using java for development offering $'s to switch to .Net. What was left out in their design was the sheer easiness to reconvert .net back to source code using off the web debuggers. My point being, ofcourse they would die. If you can't give ulitimate development tools, how can you expect them to stay ahead of teh pack.
• bellboy 19y ago
  You missed the point about MS's release of .Net.Aimed to reach over and better Java style. MS sales even targetted co's using java for development offering $'s to switch to .Net. What was left out in their design was the sheer easiness to reconvert .net back to source code using off the web debuggers. My point being, ofcourse they would die. If you can't give ulitimate development tools, how can you expect them to stay ahead of teh pack.
• bellboy 19y ago
  You missed the point about MS's release of .Net.Aimed to reach over and better Java style. MS sales even targetted co's using java for development offering $'s to switch to .Net. What was left out in their design was the sheer easiness to reconvert .net back to source code using off the web debuggers. My point being, ofcourse they would die. If you can't give ulitimate development tools, how can you expect them to stay ahead of teh pack.
• Maximus 19y ago
  I am very sorry, but the language of this article is almost exactly same as used by communist propaganda: everything is good, evil capitalism is (as the historical materialism had pre-determined) de-facto dead, just a couple of years and a perfect society will come ... are all the penguins really so mad about the different preferences?
• joshperry 19y ago
  Microsoft is dead. Right. That's why they still have abut 95% markeet share in the desktop OS market. Remember that you need to have an OS to connect to broadband and that means any growth for Google, is pretty much automatic growth for Microsoft. if another desktop OS actually gets more than a 10% market share then you might be right.
• ipso 19y ago
  So you think that Microsoft is dead, because they have lost the leader role in invention. It's true, they have no popular initiation. But Microsoft used to steal the new technologies: they did it in Windows, in which they used the user interface inveted by Apple. Microsoft is following the technical engineering nowadays too, look at the view of XP and Vista. Microsoft realised, that an OS must be not only useful, but beautiful, too, and they followed this trend. And they have mixed it with the common Windows experience, which means Windows will be a real alternative for years. Maybe they don't have the leadership, but after some years Microsoft will plead the traditions in the computer world. Don't forget that there are millions of grandmas, and their claims are real claims from a new technology. Microsoft seems dead from a technology-invertory view, but Microsoft's spirit is still alive, and Microsoft has written informatical history. Even if they are dead, even if they aren't the future, Microsoft's influence is not unimportant for the future.
• magitam 19y ago
  Hmm... interesting story... the question, in my mind, is when will the rest of the world learn the good news?? Especially when travelling in places like South America, everywhere you go, everyone runs windows computers... They're just easier to handle, and manage, when the software comes pre-installed. That people haven't yet had the opportunity to learn and use linux, or that there isn't an open OSX for them to be able to use is a crying shame... And until they have access to the software, they won't be able to enjoy these benefits, that we know to be the case, of Microsofts legacy starting to be buried...
• BostonGeorge 19y ago
  Yikes Paul. I think it's safe to say that you jumped the shark on this one. I too have been in awe of your past essays and have learned from your wisdom. I feel that this must have been a reactionary piece that you've written. Perhaps Microsoft is competing with or hurting one of your Y-Comb startups or something? It sounds like you're venting in frustration. The Mac IS "just plain cool" but the fact is that Microsoft does treat their developers with respect and loves them. They still know how to say "Thanks" and do it often. For you to suggest that Google and company have crippled them shows your lack of understanding of Microsoft's true power. It is not in the OS. It's in their developer base that utilizes their development tools - still the largest of it's kind on the planet. The day Microsoft starts taking these guys for granted is the day they will die - not a day sooner.
• Horsey 19y ago
  What is the number one activity a 15 - 25 year old American male will buy a computer for today? Its gaming. And Microsoft is still the number one gaming platform. By hanging out with a bunch of graduates from top schools that work at your startups you've basically stuck your head in the sand. These people are not your average Americans. Your Average American is using his computer for things that your circle of friends have no interest in. Seriously, get out of the valley for a few months and go visit people, regular people, around America. Go see what kids are doing in PC "bhangs" in Asia. "Everyone uses macs" ... this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. And do you think Snipshot and Jumpcut type programs are ever going to be fast enough and feature rich enough for people that care about their media? Snipshot might be ok for a quick brightness adjustment or a resize, but have you seen what kids are using photoshop for today? Go visit a popular online forum like Something Awful, Fark, or Genmay -- look at the Photoshop Phriday type activities the kids are having fun with. Tell me that you can do that stuff with Snipshot. Honestly, you old school Valley guys are just as bad as anyone from Redmond. You've got your own blinders and have as little clue as anyone else about what people actually want to do with their technology. Everyone embraces trends like Google, Facebook etc. after the fact, as though those things were carefully thought out strategies when really there are a thousands of things being tried and some are bound to succeed because people want to do _something_ online. The internet is evolving organically and though you smarty pants would like to think that a bunch of clever people are making clever choices to provide the market with what it wants, its more like putting capabilities out there seeing what will stick. People love to paint this fiction about succesful start ups, as though they were smarter than others in choosing the right "niche". Its all a load of horseshit -- nobody, least of all the founders, has any idea what the market is going to take to. So you can all sit in a circle jerk dumping on Microsoft, as though their random-walk through feature scape is something different than what you guys do, but the fact of the matter is that you are all the same. They use their own money to fund a ton of crap, most of which is nonsense, and you use other people's money to fund a ton of crap, most of which is nonsense.
• zeusx64 19y ago
  At the end of January 2007, I bought my first MAC. Yes I hold licenses for Windows so I can play Unreal Tournament 2003 and other already purchased software. No, I will not be purchasing Vista unless I run out of things to throw on the fire. Everyone, Please buy a MAC. Help support the death of a big, dumb, pathetic excuse for a real OS. Bill Gates, Please stick to games and Office. You have my credit there but really, genuinely, there is no advantage to having to reactivate because I changed my video card. The Genuine advatage program is malware at it's best. As far as screwing the customer, Microsoft is all about that. Especially with the 64 bit XP Pro and it's wonderful lack of drivers and wireless support, which I found somewhere else on the web, gave the tip to them and in turn, Microsoft thanked me for my comments and blew me off. I just now installed over XP Pro on my main PC and am compiling KDE on FreeBSD 6.2. You are very right sir, they are dead.
• hairypotter 19y ago
  There's an article in Iberian Portuguese, for those who want to read this language, based on this essay at http://www.efeitosvisuais.com/blog/2007/05/22/microsoft-is-dead-parte1/ http://www.efeitosvisuais.com/blog/2007/05/22/microsoft-is-dead-parte1/
• foobar999 19y ago
  I just interviewed at Google. They are dead, too. All the egos and hubris of MSFT from the mid 90's, wrapped up in a comforter of cult-like Jesus-freak "this is teh google wayz" BS.
• interneton9 19y ago
  Microsoft is not DEAD yet!! This is the conclusion I come out with after I read the news about Microsoft in action again. If you read the news on the recent All Things Digital you will know what I mean. I am not super fan of microsoft but I respect them as they are really working on new product to benefits people like you and me. They have came out from the stiff competition of internet & pc world and go into new arena that again they become the leader now. If you want to find out more about this, I have put up in my blog about the recent introduced of Surface Computer: http://www.interneton9.com/2007/06/microsoft-surface-computer-appeared-in-d-all-thing-digitals/ http://www.interneton9.com/2007/06/microsoft-surface-computer-appeared-in-d-all-thing-digitals/ There is no point to discuss who afraid who here now. We should go on to discuss how this products can bring a lot ore convenience to us in our daily life. Steven Wong
• interneton9 19y ago
  Microsoft is not DEAD yet!! This is the conclusion I come out with after I read the news about Microsoft in action again. If you read the news on the recent All Things Digital you will know what I mean. I am not super fan of microsoft but I respect them as they are really working on new product to benefits people like you and me. They have came out from the stiff competition of internet & pc world and go into new arena that again they become the leader now. If you want to find out more about this, I have put up in my blog about the recent introduced of Surface Computer: http://www.interneton9.com/2007/06/microsoft-surface-computer-appeared-in-d-all-thing-digitals/ http://www.interneton9.com/2007/06/microsoft-surface-computer-appeared-in-d-all-thing-digitals/ There is no point to discuss who afraid who here now. We should go on to discuss how this products can bring a lot ore convenience to us in our daily life. Steven Wong
• asdffdsa 19y ago
  Guess what, Microsoft still owns your dumbass.
• javaJake 19y ago
  I think you are definitely catching on to what is going on. Microsoft is only hanging around because of the monopoly it has in its grip. As soon as Windows drops in usage (which, by the way, is happening) Microsoft will drop in ranks.
• khollzhovbdam 19y ago
  Nice article. Wrote it at YNET 4 years ago same subject, more reasons. pitty you can't read hebrew :)
• shredinator 19y ago
  "The other half, the younger half, will complain that this is old news." I laughed out loud when I read this because, as a 17 year old, it was exactly what I was thinking when I saw the essay's title.
• amitm123 19y ago
  i have no idea in what planet you live in, my website statistics show 99.56% of my visitors (150,000 a month) are using windows 0.38% macintosh and the rest 0.06% linux. you want to be an apple resseller thats fine, but pleaese stay away from this bulshit. yes we are all waiting for microsoft to fall (20 years we are waiting). we all know that linux is nice (pain in the ass but nice) and apple has a great os (only graphic artists, and journalists uses it these days). nobody is afraid of them accept their customers but then they are far too strong for any other os
• avironim 19y ago
  Paul - predictions like yours appear regularly - each time it is something else that would ‘kill Microsoft’: pen-computing and OS/2 Warp in the early 90s, Netscape in the mid-90s, Client-Server and the network computer from Sun and Oracle in the late 90s, Linux and open-source in the early 2000s, and now Google and Apple. Clearly Microsoft has lots of challenges ahead but I suspect they have many smart people working to tackle them. It’s far from ‘game-over’, just like it was 17 years ago when there were far fewer Microsoft users on this planet..
• enemyofpaulg 19y ago
  You must have been in the passenger seat of that car they dug up from 1957. There is no doubt Microsoft has helped progress the industry (albeit sometimes monopolistically and heavy handedly - but hey they are trying to maximize ROI for shareholders). Often they also wait for others to progress the industry and come late to the game. Nonetheless, it is remarkable that a company of that size and influence can adapt to such changes and drive further improvements and direction. I don't see them becoming a non-factor. They are far from dead. Time for you to get back into that car and get lowered back into the old drive-in movie you must have been watching.
• enemyofpaulg 19y ago
  To paraphrase, everybody is moving off of Windows to Macs and Linux... only grandmas are using Windows? What have you been sniffing? Do they only hire 12 year olds at Y Combinator or just people with the mental capacity of a 12 year old (no offense intended to those readers who are actually 12 years old out there... just making a point about Paul Graham's immaturity of thought).
• deleted 19y ago
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• kim 19y ago
  my self My name is KANIKA . i am 10 years old . I am in class 5 . In ICSC board in india . I like to give test on internet . my hobbeis are dancing ,cycling, watching t.v , helping mother , helpnig the family . my wish is to work hard and be the great person but the great from father of india gandhi ji
• bklooste 19y ago
  Im increasingly beginning to believe that Web 2.0 will die... Its an abomination think what Web 2.0 applications are Middle ware apps - with java script clients , a language where few people have the required skils - A non deterministic rending system for the UI with archaic postbacks - A back end which is also badly dated - an inefficient protocol that sens 10-13 bytes of data for each byte if you need to send binary data .. or you need to encode it. - A slow and polluted UI . as marketers push flash etc into pages as well as browser addins - Security issues due to the browser architecture itself. For a limited number of companies who can afford to hand craft their javascrips ( ie not ASP.NET / server components) and who need broad reach Web 2.0 is good , but for most enterprises its a poor solution. Delivering java /.Net apps to your clients is far cheaper / more maintanable model with betetr user experience. I have had a look at Silverlight(WPF/E ) and it seems to have much better rendering/performance and be more elegant but its from Microsoft. Regards, Ben
• moko 19y ago
  Please don't stoop to worshipping Google, the new world doesn't allow giants in it anymore. And Microsoft's main problem is, has always been, and is killing them now - that their software is rubbish. The DOS TSR model they have pushed since the 80's could only go so far. UNIX models are now, we know with 20-20 hindsight, the only viable long term OS model. And what did M$ bring to the table, exactly? Everyone says "They made the desktop a reality when Apple were charging too much!" - maybe so, but did you NEED that desktop? No, really, seriously, did you need it? PC's were incapable of running serious apps simultaneously until about the time Linux's X started to really work. Word 5 for DOS was probably the last decent version of Word. OS/2 was a near-perfect OS for small scale applications There were others, nearly all forgotten. So what was Windows? I'll tell you. A backplane that allowed Word and Excell to be run at the same time. I'll re-iterate that. Windows was only ever: A backplane that allowed Word and Excell to be run at the same time. All the hard work is done by the application writers. AND - before you squawk "Driver Database! Driver Database!" - that's the same thing, the work was thrown onto the manufacturers whilst Microsoft just provided a truly awful API for them to work with, then another, then another.... Really.....Windows never brought much along at all. It is one of the most amazing marketing parlour tricks ever pulled off, like Madonna, like WMD's in Iraq - newsy and flashy and utterly empty. "Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing..."
  • BostonGeorge 19y ago
    Since Windows is the only OS model that is measured in multiples of all the other models, that is to say "Windows has 10 times the users of Unix, or 1,000x the user base of the Mac OS, I think you could say that Windows, is a viable long term OS model. You think that we really didn't need a desktop? You must be a communist. Oh and I'll agree with you on WMD's in Iraq, but please don't bring Madonna into this.
• Mr_Jingles 19y ago
  You're a freaking douche. Sure, Microsoft is no longer the empire it once was, but Mircosoft will still contain its presence in the computer world. Windows is becoming more and more similar to Macs. But Mac is still too specialized to be used for everyone. Why do you think Microsoft has power? Because anyone can use the system. Even a granny can use it now. So what? It makes it better in the marketing business. And having your applications on web based makes it only easier for hacking. The desktop mode or having applications that are on your system and not web based is a bit more safer. Linux is a good example. Each folder is encrypted and requires its own password to get into that folder or file. You probably already know this. But Microsoft has dug its own grave with the new Vista OS system. This totally ruins the great idea of open ended systems.Microsoft is becoming similar to Mac in the way its creating computers and hardware to become more closed ended. Mac has a backup file sytem when you delete a file you really want to delete it doesn't delete it but encrypts it. Thus space is never really cleaned out unless you unencrypt it.Plus most compatibilty with streaming video, games and smiliar media does not work with MAC. Macs are used for creating multimedia not running itI'm no Microsoft fan, but I appriecate your outlook that Microsoft has lost its influence, but your arguments don't really hold water. Think a bit.