Submitted by ““Microsoft is dead”, wrote Paul Graham late last week in one of the silliest columns I’ve seen in a while. Graham is a smart guy, and probably the one most responsible for you not getting entirely inundated by spam. His ‘A plan for spam‘ outlined the method now used by most anti-spam software. In this latest message, ‘Microsoft Is Dead‘, Graham argues that the Redmond giant was killed by Google, which showed people that the desktop wasn’t nearly as important in the age of Web-based applications. Plain and simple, Graham is wrong. There’s no way anyone could argue that Microsoft is dead. Just look at the numbers. When a software runs more than 90% of the desktops on the planet – and will for the foreseeable future – it’s simply not dead.” Update: Paul Graham has clarified some of his statements and explicitly has stated that Microsoft is not in danger of going out of business.
I’m really getting sick of everyone going on and on about ‘web based’ apps. They aren’t there yet. And you will never, least not in a loooong time, get ‘web based’ versions of photoshop, quake 4, etc.
Web based apps are fine for a lot of things, but they have their place, just like locally run applications.
So give it a rest already! jeez.
I wonder what the NEXT bandwagon will be.
Edited 2007-04-14 20:59
question is, are we talking general apps or specialist apps now?
i would consider photoshop and similar just that, specialist apps. unless you have a interest in the creation of graphics or serious digital photography, photoshop is overkill at best…
but still, much of what photoshop does can be done using a web app, with the actual computing being done at the server end. what is really needed is a way to display raw image data inside a browser, and the exchanging of data between browser and server. something we may well get in a future update of the html specification. they are allready working on a native video tag, proposed by opera software. that is the creators of the opera browser btw…
and quake 4 is something you can get a console for. just throw in generic support for usb mouse and keyboard so that game makers can use them effortlessly (as in, they dont have to write extra code to support them).
It appears you don’t have a proper appreciation for the computation involved in a graphics manipulation application like PhotoShop, or you wouldn’t say that, because even if there’s a huge amount of bandwidth available for such an application send data back and forth to a server, such an application requires a huge amount of RAM to run, and a similarly large amount of CPU time to run as well, even on a local system, and now you want a single centralized server (or even a group of them) to do all that computation server-side?
What you’re suggesting would be much like running video games on a remote server, and only using an XWindow or equivalent GUI on the client side: it just won’t scale well at all, even discounting all the overhead involved that the GPU does locally in FPS games, because how much CPU power do you think it takes to feed that GPU? How much memory bandwidth? Sure, a common FPS game of today may seem to take more computation and have more real-time elements than using PhotoShop, and it is also true that not every second of someone using an application like PhotoShop uses a lot of computations, but the net result is it will NOT scale well if the computation is done on a remote server and that server is shared amongst multiple people at the same time, and it doesn’t matter much how much bandwidth you throw between the client and server, because it computationally doesn’t scale in a fashion that’s economical to have remote servers do all the heavy lifting.
well then why on earth is adobe doing given that they are looking into making a web version at all? should their engineers not have done the same reasoning as your doing to dismiss the task?
btw, in his column, paul graham pointed to this:
http://snipshot.com/
with a comment about photoshop.
it strikes me that photoshop is a lot of things to a lot of people. but the stuff that page does is not something i would even bother starting up photoshop to do
also, i wonder how much cpu time google is giving away every time someone does a search. and i dont think that adobe will do photoshop pro-bono. at least not the full package. my first guess would be that they would set up a tired system where you pay for the all but the very basic (see link above) of functionality…
and isnt the application of filters or similar high cpu work often done behind the scene after one have done ones tweaking on scaled down images in a before/after view?
maybe one will go back to the days of the big irons, with time-slots
if you need to have the image rendered NOW you fork up the extra cash to get preferential treatment 
if this works, adobe kills the piracy “problem”, and may reach out to more customers then ever before. or it may belly flop, badly.
time will tell, but one thing is for sure, the amount of cpu power available is dropping, and dropping fast. something like sun’s niagara cpu, with its multiple cores, should do nice of tasks like these. or maybe even a blade stack of cells
I have a strong suspicion they’d try to get most of the computational stuff done on the client machine, as that makes the most sense for both client/server sides. However, chances are they’d keep certain details running from the server, if they do that, to lock it down such that vital things can’t be done locally, to protect their share.
For Google searches, there’s a fundamental thing computationally for that: that is a logarithmic time, where the amount of CPU time is related that if you have 1 million things, you’d have the CPU do about 20 comparisons (tops) and if you have 2 million things, that increases to 21 comparisons, which, when you have lots of RAM to have the indexed data in, takes a very small amount of CPU time for each one, and if (as is likely) at least part of it is on disk somewhere, that’s indexed with binary trees of some sort, so it still isn’t much CPU time, and instead is largely I/O bound. But consider this: while it waits for certain blocks of the disk file to be read in, chances are many other searches also need to look through those block(s), so the overall time still doesn’t amount to much for each search.
More CPU time goes into a search engine crawling the web and indexing things by far, compared to searches. The searches are something that’s conducive to doing on a remote server with lots of hard drive space and RAM, because it doesn’t take all that much CPU time for each search, combined with another very important detail as to why doing something like PhotoShop entirely on the server side wouldn’t work nicely: searches don’t require user interaction in real-time, and there’s actually very little data returned to the client for any given search result and presented page.
For every “pro” user of photoshop there are maybe 10 people that just need to crop or tweak an image. As far as the scaling of compute operations, why would you want to do that on the whole picture? Why not make smaller thumb-nail, save the order of filters and edits, and then apply them when the person finalizes the picture? Many years ago a company had a product what allowed you to edit images hundreds of megabytes in size when a large desktop had 16 megs of ram did it just this way.
even if there’s a huge amount of bandwidth available for such an application send data back and forth to a server, such an application requires a huge amount of RAM to run, and a similarly large amount of CPU time to run as well, even on a local system, and now you want a single centralized server (or even a group of them) to do all that computation server-side?
Yes, I do expect a web-based image processing application to conduct all of its processing computation server-side. I only expect XML and some sort of presentation code (e.g. javascript) to pass over the network. After all, either I’m paying for this software as a service, or I’m viewing advertisements on their site. They damn well be doing the work on their servers.
What people miss in the discussion of web-based or other kinds of remote applications (e.g. VNC, RDP, NX, etc.) is that the graphics presentation is done client-side, either by your web browser or by your native rendering system (e.g. Xorg). As long as you have enough bandwidth for a compressed presentation protocol such as NX, you can run Quake 4 remotely, but you still need a beefy GPU in the client. Web browsers don’t currently capitalize on the power of your client GPU, but they could.
What Intel and AMD are realizing is that the core of a client computer is not the CPU, but the GPU. A thin client only needs a 133MHz CPU and 24MB RAM, but it might need a GF8800 GPU if high-resolution gaming is a requirement. Margins on CPUs are decreasing while they are increasing for GPUs. Modern CPUs are even running away from typical fat client applications, while last year’s GPUs are barely adequate for today’s games.
The market for processing is shifting to the server space–to thread parallelism, virtualization, and clustering. The economy of centralized processing and the complexity of client management is going to drag the corporate market kicking and screaming towards thin clients. The consumer market will take some time to realize the benefits of running a remote desktop server (or subscribing to a remote desktop service), but the idea of using an AppleTV-like device as if it were a high-end desktop computer might be compelling from the perspective of cost, space, aesthetics, and acoustics.
What I’m getting at here is that remote desktop protocols are just as damaging to Microsoft’s business model as are rich web services. Web services are easier for the user to adopt, as they are accessible through a web browser, but desktop applications can move seamlessly from fat clients to a remote desktop server, so they can take advantage of superior desktop programming toolkits as well as client-side graphics hardware.
I agree that web programming is not there yet. AJAX could be the C of web applications, but it takes some higher-level abstractions to bring mature and usable applications to the web. The market space for AJAX toolkits is exploding (e.g. dojo), and while Web-2.0 has been successful in penetrating the consumer market, corporations are first beginning to consider how they can deploy the concepts and technology of Web-2.0 behind the firewall to realize the benefits of user-contributed content and network effects across their business units.
It’s an open secret that IBM has a special interest in driving the development of web services for the enterprise, beginning with SOA and now extending to Web-2.0. Watch for some major hype in the coming weeks as there will be a big Steve Mills press conference launching IBM’s new web services strategy. Web programming isn’t where it needs to be today, but it will be in short order.
Edited 2007-04-15 10:12
General applications have a place on the web. Saying they don’t is like stating that Outlook could never be replaced by a web app.
General applications have a place on the web. Saying they don’t is like stating that Outlook could never be replaced by a web app.
Clue stick: Photoshop could exist without the web; Outlook couldn’t.
(Well, it could, but not for global communication. Arguably not even for interorganizational computing.)
Actually, Adobe is working on a web based photoshop like thing. But it’s not for serious photoshop users. You are correct in that anything requiring a high speed access to local resources (i.e. a game) requires an execution environment that can only be provided on the local machine – unless you’re willing to open up the local machine to down-load code. Or, you could write a browser plugin, as is done for video.
However, word processing, spread sheets, browsing database records, etc really don’t require high speed access to local system resources. After 10 years of consulting, I’ve found that MS Word, Outlook, Excel, and CRUD style apps account for the vast bulk of work I’ve seen people do. All of those can be easily, reliably and securely moved to the web.
OTOH there’s also the trend of apps like Firefox adding features to work with the Web offline.
The future is not Web-based; it is “every application equally at home on the Web or off it”-based.
I see that happening as well, but I think it’s going to be a connected world in the long run. For example, look at Joyent’s “Accelerator” product. I pitched a time-sheet solution once that would have used a .NET app running on the client computer that would use a Windows service to synchronize with the “mothership” when a connection was available. (I was working in a secure environment with no connectivity for our laptops, no wifi and no edge cards allowed except when we went home or to the company office). I think given the ubiquity of connections (for example the increased range of 802.11n and muni-WiFi) people will assume connectivity just like you assume a gui and a hard-drive now. It’s going to become “The network *is* the computer” at the desktop level.
If you have a look at the latest development kit from Adobe in regards to using Flash for full on desktop applications, its going to be an interesting future – moving above and beyond the ties to win32 in favour of something that could possibly be run not only over the web but downloaded as a stand along single file and run within a hosted environment like the Flash based provided right now by Adobe.
People here have mentioned Photoshop – could the next Photoshop be gradually getting moved to this new development environment? very possible. iPhoto have their ‘printing features’ and Adobe will offer services like photo album printing, large scale printing for those who wish to do large prints for commercial work but don’t want to spend thousands on printers – outsource the printing.
ok, to ALL that replied to me.
*hits with clue bat*
Did you totally, completely, miss/ignore the line “Web based apps are fine for a lot of things, but they have their place, just like locally run applications.“?
*sigh*
Get used to things like that.
Most people here are too quick to hit the – or + buttons or go off on a steaming, ranting reply, saying the same thing that you did……
Before they actually take the time to digest exactly what it was you said in the first place.
Here is an example…
“Windows 2000 works brilliantly on this computer, it is fast, has never crashed or blue screened, XP on the other hand looks like a kids toy, crashes once a year. Vista is totally crap, does not run most of my software, is pure bloat”
Most people would ignore the fact that I prefer Windows 2000, so would mod that statement down for dissing XP or Vista, or they would reply saying that XP or Vista is brilliant for them, whoopdie-doo.
Another one…
“This machine is currently running Ubuntu 6.10. It seem s slow compared to Mepis. I liked Mepis as a system, but did not like the way Warren was taking it, so I dumped it and tried a beta of Ubuntu 7.04. Too unstable, so I went back to 6.10, that rocks”
Would immediatly be followed by these examples;
1: Ubuntu is brilliant and without flaws.
2: Mepis is the same as Ubuntu as they both are Debian based (!!!!)
3: I should not have been stupid by trying a beta.
4: Linux sucks
5: Warren sucks
6: Remove Linux and go back to Windows where you belong
7: There is no applications for Ubuntu, I need (some application)
It is getting more predictable as time goes on, the more Jethro/Cleatus/Billy-Bob from the “Click OK to continue” OK, brigade find sites like this, the worse it will become.
Now… watch this one get modded down as these cabbages realise I was talking about them.
But please, if you do hit the – link, at least have the plums to follow it up with a reply as to why you modded it down, and tell me what part of the modding rules does the post break.
I modded you up, but I tend to wonder how much of the blacklisting people do is the result of a reaction to perceived bias from others?
–bornagainpenguin
Yes, people would tend to recognise some people for posts they have made in the past, and not even bother to read the post, but mod down anyway…
Anyone remember a guy called Linux is Poo ?
He could have said anything, but almost all his posts were -5
/*Anyone remember a guy called Linux is Poo ? */
yeah, i remember, i think he later changed his username to tom k.
Edited 2007-04-15 07:36
And amazingly enough he still modded down for saying the same things he said under his old pseudonym…
Shocking, I know!
I modded you down, not because I disagree with you, but because this thread is off-topic.
Mods, please mod down this post as well.
Yeah, the whole “Web 2.0” thing is pretty funny for the cynical. Oh look, they’re promising the exact same stuff that Java promised 10 years ago. I’m sure it will happen this time.
I would have to agree.
Everything that was old is new again.
‘Web apps’ are applications running remotely, like ye olde thin clients. The major difference being that you now require a fairly beefy client to access these remote applications. oh, and the fact that developer are using document layout technologies to hack together user interfaces.
Haven’t you heard, the next bandwagon is offline web apps. lol.
Probably it’s not dead but it walks to..
“Probably it’s not dead but it walks to..”
Where does “it” walk to?
Depends…
Where do you want to go today?
sorry :p
Great!
Graham never stated Microsoft or Windows were dead as a company or as a product.
What Graham claimed was that Microsoft and Windows were dead as threats to competitors. His point was that Microsoft was no longer feared. And that point is still valid. The fact Andrew Kantor apparently cannot read doesn’t change that.
What Graham claimed was that Microsoft and Windows were dead as threats to competitors. His point was that Microsoft was no longer feared. And that point is still valid.
Then he should have chosen a better title. What he actually means is that “Microsoft is dead, for sufficiently limited definitions of the word ‘dead’ which have no relation to its actual meaning.”
Not necessarily. One could also read his article instead of making assumptions about the content
That really depends on what particular aspect of the company and it’s products that you’re talking about.
Windows is a business threat to any of the Linux desktop vendors. The Windows Server range is arguably a threat to other server OSs. The Xbox consoles are a threat to Sony and Nintendo.
The MS Office suite is a threat to OpenOffice. If IE was to remove the bugs and increase standards based rendering, it’d be a huge threat to Mozilla give that IE ships with Windows.
DirectX is a threat to any other API of its kind.
A threat doesn’t just equate to current market alternatives. It also includes upstarts competing. Microsoft, like it or not, are a huge threat to the vast majority of other companies who have products or services in competing markets.
To say otherwise, is pretty silly.
Nope. Not in the sense the original article used (threat as something one fears). Read it.
Windows is not a threat like that anymore.
MS Office is no threat. It has ceased to be that long ago. DirectX is not a threat anymore. It’s a competitor but no longer a threat.
The same goes for rest of it.
Claiming otherwise is pretty silly :p
Hahaha.. that’s pretty funny.
I still think you’re entirely wrong. Windows and Office may have a slightly reduced threat, but not in the sense I think you’re trying to convey.
Here’s the one and only reason DirectX is a threat – going from Vista onward, Microsoft is only providing OpenGL 1.3/1.4 ish libraries and may choose to run it over DirectX in the future. They’re alive and kicking in areas where they can lean on their desktop monopoly to force products down peoples’ throats.
Microsoft is well aware, and has been aware, of where they’re not conformant with standards such as DOM level 2. They’ve made it clear that any web based applications will enhance but not replace the windows platform. Hence, the web is not key to their worldview.
That may not be such a problem in the future as VMware, Parallels and other companies get 3D virtualisation off the ground.
Then DirectX or OpenGL calls from the guest system can be passed on to the host which will support newer OpenGL releases. And as WINE gets better and better Windows may not even be necessary anymore.
Here’s the one and only reason DirectX is a threat – going from Vista onward, Microsoft is only providing OpenGL 1.3/1.4 ish libraries and may choose to run it over DirectX in the future.
This is old news. They might originally have meant to do things that way as a way to kill openGL. Perhaps in response to the criticism like yours that came about, or perhaps because they never meanto to kill OpenGL in the first place, the current situation seems to be different.
According to a Microsoft blog, there are three choices for OpenGL implementation on Vista. An application can use the default implementation, which translates OpenGL calls into the Direct3D API and is frozen at OpenGL version 1.4, or an application can use an Installable Client Driver (ICD), which comes in two flavors: legacy and Vista-compatible. A legacy ICD, the kind already provided by independent hardware vendors targeting Windows XP, will disable the Desktop Window Manager, noticeably degrading user experience under Windows Aero. A Vista-compatible ICD takes advantage of a new API, and will be fully compatible with the Desktop Window Manager. – wikipedia’s summary of http://blogs.msdn.com/kamvedbrat/archive/2006/02/22/537624.aspx
If you get an ATI or nVidia (or other 3dcard makers I suppose) card you’ll get their implementation of OpenGL. The default implementation may be frozen at an obsolete level, but if you get hardware capable of driving the apps that use it at reasonable speeds, you’ll get a better implementation. Seems livable. I’ll have to revisit this with some personal experience if I ever use Vista.
So let’s see…
You can…
1) Go legacy OpenGL only (which is what Microsoft originally wanted but supposedly changed under criticism…)
2) Use a legacy ICD, something that will produce a “degraded experience” by Microsoft’s own admission…
3) Use Vista-compatible ICD, which locks you into a DirectX style Embrace and extend measure…
Somehow this doesn’t look much different than what Microsoft wanted to do in the first place, some concession, huh?
Then there’s the fact since using ICDs in this manner requires your game or application to connect with a Microsoft API, which given past performance, makes me wonder what are the odds of there being massive issues with the ICD implementation which are then blamed on OpenGL?
–bornagainpenguin
You mis-understand about what the problems are: a vista-compatible ICD provides the same standard OpenGL API that everyone else uses, so apps will be fine across platforms. The only thing that’s different is that hardware manufacturers will have to make their ICDs play nice with the DWM. None of this matters for full-screen applications (like many games), which can disable the DWM without anyone noticing or caring. Those apps will do fine with a legacy ICD.
Whether or not NVidia or ATI has released such an ICD, I don’t know.
I came to the conclusion a while ago that Microsoft is dead and for similar reasons to Paul Graham. Their top down corporate spin is out of touch with the bottom. No matter how pretty the flower, if the roots get no water the plant will die. In this context a 90% market share doesn’t mean a thing.
I daresay the Apple and Linux crowd will rush in and flaunt their egos but Microsoft’s failure doesn’t necessarily mean their success. There’s no right or wrong, here. It’s just how things work. Are Apple and Linux a better replacement? It depends, and that’s something the rigid and reactive tribal posturing never addresses.
It’s just like that BeOS thing. Thom is charging out of the gate with a narrow and rigid position, firing bullets in all directions, but he’ll come around when the reality of the situation begins to sink in. It might take a while but he’ll get there in the end and, probably, proclaim it was his position all along.
Gotta laugh…
WTF did this get modded down to -3? It needs modding up to +4 at least.
sigh Against my will I must mod this comment up, there is no reason for this comment to be moderated down except for the way it portrays Thom…. OH!
…I see, carry on then.
–bornagainpenguin
I thought that his article was about the fact that many/most new applications developed nowadays are targetted at GNU/Linux.
At least it is for me. I tend to develop cross-platform software on GNU/Linux and test if it works on Windows.
Also legacy Windows applications are deployed on a virtual Windows Server but no new Windows-only software is added so Windows will be more and more irrelevant as time passes by.
Edited 2007-04-14 21:42
Geez, if someone like me can say that Microsoft is not dead, then you have to ask, is it? But that wasn’t the point of the article – it’s merely an example of a misleading title meant to get page hits, or to put it another way, what contemporary hacks are pleased to call “journalism”. The article was about how Microsoft is irrelevant to new technology startups.
For one thing, I think that’s been true of at least some startups for some time. For another, if anyone is killing (present tense) Microsoft, it isn’t the Web or even Linux, but Microsoft itself. In a world where everyone has the power of several oldstyle minicomputers on his desk, coding for the Web just does not make sense in many cases.
Obviously, what Graham meant was that Microsoft is no longer a force to IT professionals, and he’s right. Windows Vista landed with very little interest from IT pros or consumers, and most of the software they have introduced in the last years is either too little too late or the same thing rehashed.
Compare that to Google and Apple, whose products continue to amaze, compel, and inspire, and build a fanatic following who will, eventually, get the message out that Microsoft is passe.
He’s right – Microsoft has moved from a front runner into a laid back, well placed force. But they are no longer controlling where technology, as an industry, goes.
I don’t know I agree entirely with that. They’re certainly doing a good job at forcing people to upgrade to Vista with new PCs. They’re certainly going to force it by way of PC gaming too with DirectX 10.
Microsoft has the capacity to control many aspects of technology, I feel. It may not be everything, but they never had a monopolistic control anyway.
Edited 2007-04-14 23:44
No – only one way: by force. Microsoft’s capacity to control is only by manipulating their marketshare.
That’s no different to many other markets. Is it right? No, but it still holds true.
What other market has a company with anywhere near at least 90% market share? Besides ketchup, where Heinz supposedly has 80% market share. But then I don’t have to buy “Heinz fries” or even “Heinz-compatible fries” to go with my Heinz ketchup; nor do I have to buy “non-Heinz fries” or “non-Heinz-compatible fries” if I want to buy non-Heinz ketchup; and I most certainly don’t have to go to a whitefries vendor or assemble my own fries to get them without ketchup, Heinz or otherwise.
You could get Dell-fries instead.
Microsoft has the capacity to control many aspects of technology, I feel. It may not be everything, but they never had a monopolistic control anyway.
Are you high? Have you been pulling a Van Winkle the last decade or so? Were you in a coma when the ‘Soft was under DOJ investigation in the states–the lack of outcome that’s forced the EU to step up and start fining them for every little thing they can find as a reaction?
[…] they never had a monopolistic control anyway.
You sound like a Microsoft shill when you say things like this. In fact, giving your recent posts a casual look over I’d say that’s exactly what you sound like. How’d you get that high comment rating of yours while making such comments as this?
They’re certainly doing a good job at forcing people to upgrade to Vista with new PCs.
Here’s a hint: Nobody is enthused about Vista. Take a look around and maybe conduct a straw poll of some of your local OEM shops and company suppliers and ask how much churn the latest release has generated… It ain’t pretty. Bottom line? Windows 2000 was ‘good enough’ but XP was an evolutionary release that included several nice features that made it worthwhile to upgrade– Vista? Not so good..
Oh! It’s a bit …shall we say….telling to see you claim no monopolistic powers at Microsoft, and then talk about how they’re forcing people to upgrade with each new machine sold.
–bornagainpenguin (who expects there to be quite a number of people adopting that moniker via large switches to Linux or MacOS in the next few years)
If you bothered to read more than just a few recent ones, and casually, you’d see I’m not even close to your stereotype suggestion.
The discussion that I responded to was not specific to Windows. It was about technology in general, to which I stand by what I said. Microsoft under that light doesn’t have nor have they ever had a monopoly on it. The words “technology” and “industry” are vast categories that aren’t locked into “Windows”.
The industry is a whole lot more than just Windows. I even said they have the ability to control many aspects of technology, but not all.
Also, taking personal swipes at people is very tacky, so please refrain from directing them towards me and other people who don’t have purist points of view towards any one company or point of discussion.
The fact I even bothered to look at all should make it clear I try to keep an open mind regarding things like this. The fact your response is to call me tacky for my observation and declare that observation a personal attack doesn’t exactly persuade me to rethink what I view as a bias on your part.
Now going back to what you actually said, which is that in the same breath you claimed Microsoft never had a monopolistic control while not even a few sentences ago you reported They’re certainly doing a good job at forcing people to upgrade to Vista with new PCs. They’re certainly going to force it by way of PC gaming too with DirectX 10.
How can you say both things with a straight face unless you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth?
Now, bringing this back to the discussion point on which this whole topic is about:
I think this monopolistic tendency of Microsoft is what they’re reaping now. It would have been much better for them if they’d gone ahead and kept with the release planned for the Longhorn they’d been working on before XP Service Pack Two (which was more or less a rewrite) changed their focus. Because non-geeks would have just seen the eye candy and they’d have bought it in droves, never really noticing the cruft patched over it in subsequent updates. Or if they did notice, they’d be running out for a new machine, not recognizing it for what it was, like they’d done before with Win9x.
Instead, Microsoft ironically did the right thing and tried to fix as many security holes as they could for service pack two, and this (along with other demands — XboX anyone? Windows Media Center? Tablet Edition?) ended up pushing back the release of Longhorn to where the decision was made to scrap it in favor of what we now call Vista. And they made the decision to default in favor of DRM at every step. And worse of all….
They removed nearly everything they’d been hyping up over the years as the delays got longer and longer…
They added WGA to the already annoying hassles of WPA–which they assured us all was strong enough they’d not need more privacy invasions than that. They assured us it worked.
Meanwhile Apple’s MacOS X has been looking nicer and nicer–oh and it now runs on X86 and I can get my XP to run on the same hardware!
Meanwhile this guy from South Africa has started up yet another Linux distro company based on Debian–oh wait… he’s using his own money to send everyone a copy?
Meanwhile Google has decided it might not do evil, but it can certainly buy evil, and begins to enact Microsoft’s worst nightmare–a complete suite of web-based Office apps…
Yeah… I do tend to think Microsoft’s time in the industry, and having to do with technology is ending. The company itself will no doubt survive; their diversification moves if nothing else will see to that! I just no longer think it will be Microsoft that will fill in the blank in the statement: “No one ever got fired for buying _______.”
–bornagainpenguin
I never said you were tacky. I said personal swipes are tacky. Your act of doing so doesn’t mean you as a whole are tacky, but your personal swipe was.
On the point of the discussion… Again, I was discussing the industry as a whole. You keep missing that.
You’ve missed the point twice, even after I tried to help you understand. Your commentary, in my view, comes across as exceptionally aggressive. Moreover, I feel as though you keep trying to manipulate what I’ve said.
In my view, it’s very difficult to see how you could reasonably have an objective point of view. I have agreed that Microsoft have some monopolistic powers, but I don’t for a second cast that across the entire industry or technology in general. They simply never have nor currently have this.
This is what I have been trying to explain to you, but again you persist in being unnecessarily aggressive and incapable of absorbing that point.
This flamewar is tacky…It’s like watching someone buy a Vista PC and then take it home, expecting to be impressed, and being confronted with reality: very ugly. Very Ugly Indeed.
I don’t think anyone, not even people like me who are constantly accused of “bias” against Microsoft, has ever accused them of having a monopoly on “technology”. We’ve pointed out that they have a monopoly in desktop computing, and whilst they will spend millions publicly denying any such thing, (which is the kind of ammunition shills use to defend them), recent events (the unearthing of the ACPI documents and the “shall we or shall we not push Apple off the cliff by withdrawing Office” debate) demonstrate very well that they know they have a monopoly perhaps better than anyone else.
And the fact is that whilst they do not have a monopoly in technology, given the ubiquity of MS products in companies – especially technology companies – their desktop monopoly almost certainly has a knock-on effect on other technology. How much of the price of products these days for example is brought to you today by the letters BSOD and the number 0800-SERVER-DOWN-AGAIN?
I’m not flaming. I’m arguing and defending my point of view. I entered this conversation with an alternative point of view, to which I was very unreasonably attacked.
I also never said that anyone “like you” did suggest they had a monopoly on technology.
Carefully read what I said. I was talking about technology in response to the original point of view. I was not talking about Windows at all.
I never said they had a monopoly from the very beginning. I said they have control of many aspects of technology, which I stand by. My point of view was manipulated by another, to which I will not stand for and will defend.
You were attacked for flagrant inconsistency, not just for “an alternative point of view”.
I never claimed that you, in particular, did.
Well, maybe you should clarify your comments, because to me it sounded like you were denying they have a monopoly at all. Which is plain rubbish.
I entered this conversation with an alternative point of view, to which I was very unreasonably attacked.
I deny having attacked you.
Unless of course you perceive any analysis of your text and questioning where it doesn’t match up with what you have already said to be an “attack” of some sort.
–bornagainpenguin
Paul Graham wrote a Cliffs notes version in which he explicitly states that Microsoft is not going out of business.
http://www.paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html
/*When a software runs more than 90% of the desktops on the planet – and will for the foreseeable future – it’s simply not dead.”*/
I agree, and without a MS OS on a desktop nobody can access google,because google is a website, unless they are using another os,which not many people are, so, i don’t see how google killed MS, unless google releases their own OS.
Edited 2007-04-15 00:23
Google Search vs. MSN Search
Gmail vs. Hotmail/Outlook
Google Calendar vs. Outlook
Google Docs & Spreadsheet vs. Office
Google Earth vs. MS equivalent (I forget the name)
Sure, MS remains a quasi-monopoly in terms of OSes and Office Suites, but it has largely been confined to these areas…on the Web, it has been forced to compete against Google (and others) and has failed to gain the upper hand.
/* on the Web, it has been forced to compete against Google (and others) and has failed to gain the upper hand.*/
I agree, that is why I mostly use google search,etc instead of MS’s web apps.
…, and without a MS OS on a desktop nobody can access google,…
Huh?? I access google all the time with no MS software near my desktop.
/*.., and without a MS OS on a desktop nobody can access google,…*/
haha, this is not what i wanted to say, i guess my allergy
problems are making me post this type of comments. I better stop posting comments for awhile.
Incorrect; Microsoft uses their monopoly in Windows to maintain its monopoly in Office and in their monopoly in the Office space to maintain its Windows operating system.
How many end users do you know who ‘can’t’ move because they rely on Windows for applications, and in turn, rely on Microsoft Office which means they have to run Windows.
It isn’t about providing a complete solution, but instead create something that breaks that cycle of interdependence; the first phase is to replace the existing Windows applications with alternatives, either through web service facilities or provision via third party vendors.
Once you have provided the alternative, you can then move from the operating system; once that, like I said, that interdependence between the two is broken, Microsofts hold on the marketplace ceases to exist.
As for Microsofts impact on the rest of the market place, its immaterial. Their search engine is bloody appalling, their email facility of Hotmail is only popular because people *assume* if you want MSN Messenger you have to have a hotmail account (which is wrong, my msn address is a gmail account) and many of the new features added to their products recently have little or no relevance to the end user, thus only shoveled via the OEM channels rather than being retail purchases.
OpenOffice.org is gradually getting there, and the remaining bastions of Microsoft Office usage will be those who are adament that they need all those so-called ‘important features’ and yet never use them; its like the people who claim that Active Directory is a ‘kill feature’ and yet never use any of the features beyond what a standard OpenLDAP server would provide.
Incorrect; Microsoft uses their monopoly in Windows to maintain its monopoly in Office and in their monopoly in the Office space to maintain its Windows operating system.
really? cause last thing i heard, http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/office2004/office2004.aspx?pi… that was getting rave reviews. Kinda breaks up the cycle of evility, doesnt it?
Windows maintains its monopoly mostly through OEM deals, and partially through the lack of any better alternative for the common man on cheap hardware.
Office maintains its monopoly through the fact that nothing out there competes with it (seriously).
OpenOffice.org is gradually getting there, and the remaining bastions of Microsoft Office usage will be those who are adament that they need all those so-called ‘important features’ and yet never use them; its like the people who claim that Active Directory is a ‘kill feature’ and yet never use any of the features beyond what a standard OpenLDAP server would provide.
OO.o is at about office 97. Now, office 97 was enough for most people (hell, wordpad is enough for most people), and OO.o is a MUCH cheaper alternative. However, to say that it is comparable to Office 2007 is like saying the Gimp is comparable to Photoshop. Get any professional to try the gimp, and as soon as they draw a line they will be able to tell you they couldnt use it professionally. Same deal with OO.o.
MacOS X is not a direct competitor to Windows, it was a established during the trial of Microsoft – so I don’t know why people like YOU who keep digging assertions that have been proven wrong.
To be a competitor to Windows, it needs to be a drop in replacement of equal or lower cost; MacOS X won’t fulfill that role until the day that you can install it on a generic machine.
The issue isn’t so much the fact that you have to install a new operating system, but the fact you have to purchase a whole new machine simply to migrate operating systems – that is the hurdle which puts MacOS X out of reach for most people.
What is lacking out there in other office suites besides brand awareness?
Bullcrap; the same people who ‘claim’ they need Microsoft Office are the very same people who claim the need Exchange and all they use the mail server function, or the idiot who claims they need active directory but never uses the enterprise features for locking down desktops – all these could be easily replaced with cheap or no-cost alternatives.
The problem is, as far as I see, in many cases, those who make the decisions don’t have to pay for it out of their own pocket; the day when you start seeing CIO’s having to pay for software out of their own pocket, it will force them into a situation where they would truly have to make evaluate the alternatives.
MacOS X is not a direct competitor to Windows, it was a established during the trial of Microsoft – so I don’t know why people like YOU who keep digging assertions that have been proven wrong.
To be a competitor to Windows, it needs to be a drop in replacement of equal or lower cost; MacOS X won’t fulfill that role until the day that you can install it on a generic machine.
The issue isn’t so much the fact that you have to install a new operating system, but the fact you have to purchase a whole new machine simply to migrate operating systems – that is the hurdle which puts MacOS X out of reach for most people.
You said that office maintains the windows monopoly, and windows maintains the office monopoly. This is not possible if you are able to run office on a non-windows os.
As for OSX not being competition, people buy new machines all the time, and each time they do they are presented with the choice to go windows or mac. The majority conisistantly go windows, even with the availability of office on the mac.
What is lacking out there in other office suites besides brand awareness?
To be totally honest, I not only do not use office suites, but i hate it when someone sends me a .doc that could very easily have been done in rtf or plain text. But, a trial of office 2007 came with my pc and i have poked around with it, and the ui is beyond awsome. I seriously hope ms adopts it for the rest of their product line, as I would love to see ribbons in Visual Studio (the ms product I do use and love)
That being said, my mom is a doctoral student and professional translator, and she does use word to its fullest. She is the type of person who looks forward to the new versions of word, and keeps up to date with what features will be comming out. Aparently corel is the closest, but nothing really does what word does. But she is not the typical user, and as I pointed out before, OO.o (and word 97) is more then enough for typical uses.
Bullcrap; the same people who ‘claim’ they need Microsoft Office are the very same people who claim the need Exchange and all they use the mail server function, or the idiot who claims they need active directory but never uses the enterprise features for locking down desktops – all these could be easily replaced with cheap or no-cost alternatives.
If you are writing memos, OO.o is fine. If you are doing serious collaberative work, Word is a godsend.
The problem is, as far as I see, in many cases, those who make the decisions don’t have to pay for it out of their own pocket; the day when you start seeing CIO’s having to pay for software out of their own pocket, it will force them into a situation where they would truly have to make evaluate the alternatives.
CIOs income typically directly corrolates with how well the corporation does over the fiscal year. Office is a standard because it does the job, and does it well. Corporations dont care about the things it is horrible at, like interoperability or open standards and protocols. They care about the bottom line, and the bottom line is that it has been proven to do the job in virtually every major corporation for years now, and is an industry standard.
I’ve used the GUI, its alright, nothing to write home about to be completely honest; it was a much needed improvement.
The problem as far as I see it, they only went part way, they need to sit down and come up with a universal standard for their whole operating system which covers every application; if you write a media application this is what it should look like and behave like. If you write an Office suite, it should interact this way.
Set some standards and make sure that they’re used right through the whole Microsoft product line up – I mean, geeze, take a look at Windows Vista for example, each application on their uses different widgets, the font dialog uses widgets from circa 1993 for christ sake! does anyone at Microsoft do spring cleaning?
You know what mate, I used to say “ooh, Microsoft Office isn’t ready” and then spiel off a list of things that apparently don’t exist on OpenOffice.org – the reality is that those features DO exist on OpenOffice.org but under a different name. It took me a while to find them, but they’re there.
Yes, I understand the types of features which your mum would like, for example, automatic footnote formats; the ability to choose ‘havard style quotations/reference’ then simply plug in the information as per required. I have to admit, as a university student my self, I’d love to see them, but if its the difference between free with a little inconvenience versus playing NZ$350, I’d go for OpenOffice.org.
As for everything else, referencing, contents (links so it jumps straight to the page for instant access) and the likes, they all exist in OpenOffice.org – revisiting the quotations issue, she could create a custom macro using the macro recorder that is included with OpenOffice.org – I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks easy enough.
Using what metric? I mean, if you are going to compare something with another thing, there has to be some sort of metric to actually validate that finding – improved productivity? lower cases of OOS (Occupation Overuse Syndrome) and sick leave? there is no use throwing out ‘proven to do the job’ without actually using something to justify it.
I mean, if we’re going to use subjective waffle, then we might as well have stayed with WordStar 2000 and WordPerfect, along with the hobbled combo of that along with Lotus 1-2-3 and Harvard Graphics if the metric was ‘worked for years’ as a metric.
Microsoft Office is used because it has a company behind it, plus coupled with the ‘no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft’ of course you’ll end up with entrenched users – they’re never able to justify their decision except to give the typical sheep-heard justification.
Add to the fact that no one ever seems to have the melons to actually question any CIO decision – “are you sure we can’t do that cheaper?”, “Doesn’t that sound like a large amount of money for minimum productivity improvements?” – I can’t wait for the day when you start having management start questioning a CIO’s decisions given the complete lack of justification behind them. Believe me, if it were my money being spent, I’d want justification for its allocation to a certain area.
Edited 2007-04-16 16:47
If MS is dead with 90% of the desktop market share?
I gotta wonder where that leaves all the rest of the operating systems on earth?
If MS is dead with 90% of the desktop market share?
I gotta wonder where that leaves all the rest of the operating systems on earth?
I remember a 1993 magazine article about Windows NT, which noted that it could be run on a variety of platforms “including DEC’s fast Alpha chip”. Clearly, this magazine (don’t recall which it was, unfortunately) was excited about Alpha. At one time DEC was the largest computer company in the world outside of IBM, and (in time-honoured techie fashion) got that far by going into a market IBM ignored. Fast forward ten years and IBM is playing catch up in that market.
Fast forward 4 years from that 1993 article, and DEC was bought by Compaq. Despite Digital being in DECline (sorry can’t resist a bad pun), the amount of money involved was the single largest amount of money spent in buying out a computer company (or was it any company?) in history. Nowadays VMS maintains its niche, but it is not growing (although many VMS fans blame this on a lack of promotion by HP), and Alpha is being phased out in favour of Itanic. UNIX, meanwhile, probably sold more PDPs, VAXen, and DECstations than all DEC proprietary OSes put together.
Oh, and have you ever spoken to a VMSer? If you think Linux users are rabid, my God. At least Linux users sleep soundly in their beds knowing no-one in their right mind would code a new operating system that wasn’t POSIX-compatible.
All this despite the fact that in 1988, DEC were still wondering whether a computer company could be successful without controlling its own architecture. Hello?
Second example: I know of two places around here where the employees log in to some sort of mainframe/minicomputer system, via a terminal emulator on Windows, to use a text-based app. I doubt they’re the only two in the area. And this despite the fact that no-one in these companies (beyond the tech staff) has the slightest inkling of what these technologies represent.
MS technology will still be around in ten years; but I think it’s entirely possible that it will be owned by a Microsoft that is a subsidiary of another company. (IBM, probably.)
Edited 2007-04-15 02:46
MS technology will still be around in ten years; but I think it’s entirely possible that it will be owned by a Microsoft that is a subsidiary of another company. (IBM, probably.)
Where can I purchase what you are smoking?
You probably would have said the same thing if I had predicted the Compaq/DEC buyout in 1988 or even 1993, especially if you were partial to DEC technology. (I certainly didn’t see IBM selling to Lenovo.) But by 1997 it would be me who had the smug look on his face.
When you eventually conclude IBM is a BANK instead of technology company, it will be a better day. They dump everything which looks like a loser.
It’s a mighty long list of products they have dumped over the years. Notebooks, hard drives, PC’s, OS/2.
They didn’t dump all those products for the sake of technology, they dumped them for the sake of profit.
I say IBM only because I can’t think of another company big enough. Maybe Glaxo SmithKline Beecham, but although it might turn out to be them, if I said “GSKB are going to buy out Microsoft” even I would think I must have been smoking something.
Nevertheless, if IBM dump losing products, that must be why they have dumped mainframes every time some pundit predicts the death of same. Not.
I gotta wonder where that leaves all the rest of the operating systems on earth?
They’re carving up the corpse for future reference. ;P
No seriously! This is the point in time when we begin to look backwards and see how the relentless upward climb made by Microsoft stalled and began to reverse itself. This is nothing new really, because its happened before.
Anyone remember when Kodak stood for film and cameras, not paper?
Or when Polaroid meant cameras that gave you pictures immediately, and not televisions? LMAO you could have dropped me with a feather the first time I went into a local K-mart and saw them with Polaroid televisions!
In the future Microsoft will no longer be known for its operating systems, it will have moved on to a new market.
Maybe it will be the consoles market, or the home entertainment market; I don’t even think they themselves know it quite yet, but they do know the change is coming… Else why would they have this mad diversification effort going on now when they know its destabilizing to their core markets–unless maybe they have numbers we do not and realize those markets have begun to shift away from their core?
–bornagainpenguin
Looking at the current status of web apps you can safely say that they can’t replace some of the more heavy weight desktop applications. Not whilst maintaining good usability anyway.
Pretty much everything from Adobe has to be a desktop app for now (and yes I know they’re doing a web based Photoshop but it wont be for serious professionals), not to mention full-on coding IDE’s, CAD programs, etc.
However, if we spin the time wheel forward say 30 years (maybe only 15), I think the picture will be very different. By then I’m thinking the pipe to the Internet will be as fast as the pipe on your local network. Server CPU power will be more ridiculous than it is now. We’ll not only have HTML5 but possibly V6, 7 and 8, which should address lots of things like enhanced application style widgets (grids, trees, split panes, etc), persistent local storage (access to local resources), snappy GUI rendering engines, etc.
The thing about the web is that it can’t be controlled. New technologies can be introduced just like that (just ask Google) that have no installation requirements at all. The point that I’m making is that, moving into the future, Microsoft will be losing the ability to categorically control what platforms and technologies are being used. IMHO this is a good thing. No one company should control any market sector – it’s not healthy.
Microsoft will not be dead (not even as a feared competitor), but they will be humbled.
Who provides the local environments for rendering and storage access? I see Microsoft filling this market quite well when WPF/E starts coming online. They could also be massive providers of the backend infrastructure to run all of this. Neither Linux nor Windows is not the be-all and end-all of OSes and 30 years is a long time.
Where I see the story going is that network computers will have a local hard drive cache for fast loading and a managed MicroKernel OS like Singularity for running applications. The people who control the platform (your service provider) will provide the base layer and people will write purely managed applications which run on it that you can get on a subscription basis over the web. I could see Microsoft doing reasonably well in this market… at least as well as Google or anyone else.
I see a lot of reluctance in IT shops now to buying into a vendor neutral strategy. A lot of places I know will use a WPF or XAML app, but will not develop them. If I were developing an app, I would also not want to alienate any potential clients (read Safari). Also, some of us want to see a little shakeout, so we don’t see a repeat of the ActiveX fiasco.
The storage on your PC is exactly the thing we’re moving away from. The idea that you would have to pull down an application, or have files “trapped” on your PC would look clunky compared to a web site that just worked and was accessible from any machine. Windows may still be the desktop, but what people do with it will be different.
Every year we get idiots like Paul Graham that frankly come out with the dumbest of ideas, rants, blogs, or articles that quite frankly really makes me wonder…who the hell pays these people.
Google is NOT a competitor in any true sense. Maybe the geeks at home will use Google Apps or Google mail because it is the “in” thing to do. Well anything non-Microsoft is the “in” thing now isn’t it? But the reality is, people that need to get something done, are not using Google. Companies are not rushing too use Google mail, apps, etc.. And what really pushes the market place is not the home user nerds, but what the business world wants. The reality of the world as it is now is that Ajax, Google, Gmail or whatever are not any threat to Microsoft..plain and simple. While the home user, and I mean a small minority of geeks will use this, Microsoft could really care less.
What would be a threat? Well an office suite that was less expensive but as feature rich as Office. But, nobody has yet to develop one. Openoffice may be fine for basic tasks, but it is simply just not a replacement. And let us not forget that Office came into dominance not by monopoly, as the anti-microsoft zealots scream about, but simply because they added the features that people wanted. Over 10 years ago there were alternatives, but the companies behind them (Lotus, Adobe.etc) got complacent with adding features.
Fact of the matter, this guy is basically pretty damn clueless when it comes to the real world. He seems more like the typical geek accountant that could not tell you the difference between an SAS and SCA drive, yet will go on and on about his “knowledge” of the tech industry. The scary thing is it is people like this fool who have sadly worked their way up the IT ladder. I come across these people all the time, and 80% of the time our consultation is to get rid of these idiots ASAP. I have seen these guys cost companies $110k plus in one years IT budget buying rack systems that have no use or value to the company, but it sure looks “cool” in the IT room now doesn’t it. It is fun though watching these morons squirm when trying to justify the expense when confronted.
It is idiots like Paul Graham who truly know nothing that cause the rest of the IT world so much headache
Paul Graham is not who you say he is. You may be right about his incorrect conclusions, but Graham is one of those people who really does know a lot about his area (and is not afraid to say it).
Graham was a lisp-hacker who created a sophisticated web-site development/hosting system that now became Yahoo Stores. He is not an IT guy as such… now he’s a venture capitalist.
I think he’s wrong, but I respect his vision for a network connected world with very little local data. A lot of people thought about it before, but now we’re reaching a stage where interconnects are fast enough to make it a reality. We just need a way to start delivering the applications.
I think AJAX and the web-browser is a serious distraction to the vision. We need normal thick-client apps, but an OS that supports fetching these apps and all the data attached to them from the network on a periodic basis. We need a system that allows for safe execution of apps from a variety of sources without giving them access to anything other than the specific files they need (not even to the data within a user’s profiles). We need cloud storage of data with versioning and easy rollback to recover from corruption.
We’re going there, but I don’t think the Web and AJAX crowd is really doing it the right way. Only a big company heavily-entrenched in the PC marketplace can do this. That could be Google, but it is more likely to be Microsoft.
After reading this and the “Open Source Vista” articles, and after having seen David K. Every get run out of the ArsTechnica forums a few years back (for doing stuff like asserting that NT contained “DOS underpinnings), I’ve developed a new theory on technology-pundit “journalists.” I’m starting to think that online tech pundits (Dvorak, Every, et al) are primarily people who got torn to shreds in online OS advocacy forums, before realizing that their writing was much better suited for media with significantly lower standards of argument.
In Graham’s editorial, his entire opening argument consists is little more than an account of the reaction of an unspecified person in an anecdotal encounter. Or rather lack-of-reaction – but thankfully Graham knew what he was thinking, and was able to use it as an excuse to rehash the last two years worth of “VISTA IS DOOOOOMED!” articles. If he had posted that in the Battlefront forum on Arstechnica, or a comp.os.*.advocacy newsgroup, it would be either ripped up in minutes or completely dismissed for laughable-ineptitude of its arguments.
Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but whatever happened to the idea that editorial writing should have higher standard than purely-informative writing? If anything, opinions require much more justification than a simple recitation of known fact, but tech punditry seems to reflect the excessively-egalitarian idea that “any opinion is as good as any other.” When in fact, an opinion is only as good as the arguments that can be offered in support of it.
I agree there is a lot of low-quality opinion journalism, a bit of it paid for by one group or another. Dvorak even admitted that he stirs the hornet’s nest to generate interest. However, I think the message of Paul Graham’s argument is right on. The cash cows for Microsoft are centered around deploying applications on desktops, which are becoming increasingly difficult to manage and make secure. In addition people are overwhelmed with the management of hundreds, if not thousands of e-mails, word processing documents, and other information.
The point is we’re moving from a world of a whole lot of complicated software installed on a desktop or laptop (which is requiring ever increasing sophistication by its users to manage), to a world where professionals manage the systems. (Most people don’t think if it that way – they just like the fact they have e-mail, or can share photos, or get directions and didn’t have to install or configure anything.) It has nothing to do with the technical quality of the solution, but making life simpler. This new world is a world of protocols and interfaces, and doesn’t tie you to a desktop.
It’s also not the “thin-client” world that never developed. That was invented top down. This web-based approach is percolating from the bottom up. A lot of the PC movement percolated up from the bottom, as well, especially in the early 80’s. It’s that kind of creative environment that also draws creative people. Microsoft is no longer able to pick and choose the best and brightest. Companies like Google are brain-draining Redmond. Part of that has to do with going into new a fertile areas, rather than cultivating old fields.
If you look at Microsoft’s strategy around the web, they are trying to build a version of the web that’s Microsoft specific. For example, some of the features like XAML are an attempt to interject a particular desktop environment into the web. They refuse to follow standards on some basic things like DOM Level 2 event handling. Their web development tools inject JavaScript that has a mixed track record of cross platform compatibility. But a lot of this is reactionary, rather than proactive.
People are coming to expect that their files and data are available to them wherever and whenever. Even if they forget their laptop at work, they expect to be able to get to their information. (I actually like to leave my laptop at work, why do I need that particular laptop when I have a perfectly good computer at home?) They’re growing increasingly less tolerant of hard drive “crashes” wiping out photos, tax returns, and the last really, really good copy of their resume.
It’s not that Microsoft is selling buggy whips at the dawn of the automobile, but rather Microsoft is like GM in the 1970’s. Back then “nobody” wanted cheap, tiny fuel efficient death-trap cars, the kind of cars Toyota and Honda were selling*. The net result is GM passed from 50% of the domestic US car market to 25%. (Even though they’ve had many profitable years.) I (and Paul) would say that Microsoft is dead the same way GM is dead.
1970’s song illustrates a point well “Making Love in a Subaru” highlighted the ambivalence people felt about the good, cheap car. There were times when you really needed giant bench seating.
+5. If only I had a vote…
of a PC. That sounds silly considering that without it computers aren’t really easy to use, but people who use computers are more interested in applications than the operating system that allows them to work. Well, people who don’t work on computers for a living or fun.
I don’t think anybody can say that Microsoft is dead until they go the way of the Dodo, but my feelings are that when applications become available on other operating systems Microsoft’s Windows OS will start becoming less dominate and eventually relegated to a also ran OS. Of course that’s assuming life runs in a straight line (which it doesn’t).
Of course I never hear anybody talking about the ecosystem built around Windows. It’s kind of interesting to think that what really keeps Microsoft the dominate player in the OS market is the investments of other application developers. Many developers only develop software for Windows. I like to think of it as a catch-22. Since it cost more money to support other platforms developers naturally want to recoup that money through sales and support. Considering Microsoft has the largest install base it only makes since to make Windows the first choice.
Like other have pointed out web applications aren’t going to replace everything anytime soon. In some places they can get away with terminal servers and in other they could get away with web based applications, but over all web applications aren’t going to replace regular old desktop applications anytime soon.
I think people are tied to the PC for the time being and in that they are also tied to a particular OS (Windows) until such time when the ecosystem surrounding Microsoft and Windows changes.
You can’t build a road through the rain forest until you cut down some trees. Likewise you can’t really hurt the dominance of Windows until you get developers to develop for other operating systems.
Don’t knock the investments people make in software – look at the market in VMS and even VAX emulators!
Dually noted.
It exposes a hyperactive view of the world. It’s a mindset that comes from too much exposure to too much changing technology. You reach the point where you think lack of change is a bad thing. If it’s not moving, it’s dead.
First of all in the world of technology you are dead if you’re not moving. The same is true as a publicly traded company. If your company is not growing or does not have potential for growth then your company is dying, and stock prices reflect that.
The best example of this is the newspaper business, which is one of the most profitable in the world. Newspaper publishers, on average, have a profit margin of about 20%; only the financial services and pharmaceutical sectors make more money.
Bad example. Newspaper readership is down and prices are going up. This is all do to faster moving technology like internet news sites and blogs. This is the future.
I would agree that both Newspapers and Microsoft are not dead but they are definitely dying. There is always a chance that they can recover but a change of course is needed because nothing exciting is on the horizon and that’s not good news for investors.
If your company is not growing or does not have potential for growth then your company is dying, and stock prices reflect that.
Yes. Here is a graph that compares Microsoft’s stock prices (in the lower, flatter line) to The S&P 500 (in the upper, rising line) over the last 4 years.
http://quotes.nasdaq.com/quote.dll?page=charting&mode=basics&intrad…
If you change the Time Frame to 10 years and click Update Chart you can see some of Microsoft’s explosive rise prior to 2000.
The chart seems to support the author’s conclusion.
Microsoft is not dead, but the brains of their users. Depending on crap software is mainly a reason of stupidity.
I think computing must back to the handcraft era (the 8bit one), where a lot people knew about programming and how to do their own software without depending on paying everything. This might comeback with open/free software, but sadly the world is full of lazy people that have jobs they hate and not want to “work for free”.
Microsoft wont probably disappear in the short term, but sooner or latter it has to loose its 90%+ domination position in the IT business. The key question is how slowly or how quickly it will “die”,allowing for much needed “breathable air”for new and more innovative companies and business models.
By now, Golmand Sachs investment bank has demoted Microsoft stock out of its recommendions:
http://www.itpro.co.uk/news/109868/goldman-sachs-demotes-microsoft-…
“Financial institution Goldman Sachs has removed the software giant’s stock from its elite list and said its business model was increasingly “outdated”.
Edited 2007-04-15 12:40
Another “talking-head” schmo touting the wonderfully stupid world of “Web 2.meh”. Nobody cares, except for underworked and overpaid web developers looking to keep their jobs.
I like Google and all, but for free office apps, there’s only OpenOffice for my installs.
If MS gets into financial trouble, in the foreseeable future, it’s most certainly NOT going to be because of Web 2.blow
Mr. Graham works with web developers graduating from college looking to make startups. I think he actually has a pretty good success rate.
To call him a web2.0 schmo is very naive. He’s a lot more than a schmo.
That is not dead which can eternal lie…
There are people who will not buy a new computer that runs MS software. I run Linux on all of my home computers (Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu). After evaluating all of my options my next new computer will be a Mac.
So, it can be said that MS is not dead, but, Vista is encouraging people to explore other modes of computing.
Linux or Mac is the way to go in my opinion.
This is definitely an unusual amount of arrogance from Mr. Graham (he usually supports his claims very well, but here he seems to make grand conclusions out of the opinion of a niche group).
I do think there’s something to what he’s saying: The developer mindset today is getting less and less “Microsoft, Microsoft, rah rah rah!” and more “Something that doesn’t change every week, please please please!”
I still see a stronger group of Windows developers than other developers here at University, but even the Windows developers often seem to be less than zinged about the tools they’re using.
I’d also say the lack of fear of Microsoft is showing itself as well. Certainly startups won’t fear them as much anymore, but even Dell seems to be getting ballsier with respect to them.
My guess is that this is partially coming out of the security issues of 2003/2004 and the delays of Vista. But I think Microsoft will make a comeback.
And, no, Mr. Graham, the web is not the future of desktop computing. It’s just finally showing it’s application features. I love gmail, the pop3 access is great
.
No Microsoft has years till dead is possible because of shear volume. It is much like Apple in 1990-1995. Apple was king of the hill, but had already lost the battle. Windows 3.1 was proven than even though MS had not achieved elegance, they where good enough to threaten Apples control of the lucrative GUI market. At that time Apple had ceased to innovate (the innovators were at NeXT). Apple was beginning to branch out into other directions while it’s core business was floundering. System 7 slapped a pretty coat of paint on an aging OS that was well past it’s prime. They failed to see the direction in the market and assumed their current dominance would sustain them. They did not see 1995 coming as Microsoft got it right enough to take control of the innovator tag wether deserved or not.
Microsoft is there now. They are prettying up XP and selling it as Vista. They are trying to move into other markets without huge success. Even the Xbox is proving that failure can be pulled from success, as it (much like the PS3) is proving that the technology is ahead of the market forcing it to be too expensive or a large money loser (remind anyone of the Newton). As other competitors like Nintendo discover the “sweet spot” at half the price. Vista is flopping while OS X gets critical acclaim and an aggressive ad campaign is making huge numbers of Microsoft’s disgruntled customer base discover that they can switch.
Microsoft isn’t dead, but they have a terminal case of cancer and need to take some radical treatment that may be too big for the behemoth to be able to pull off. If they can’t do it, well, they are as good as dead.