Microsoft is Dead

[KenR]

While I can't be certain, I fear this will cause universal mourning. Better start distributing the SSRIs.

A few days ago I suddenly realized Microsoft was dead. I was talking to a young startup founder about how Google was different from Yahoo. I said that Yahoo had been warped from the start by their fear of Microsoft. That was why they'd positioned themselves as a "media company" instead of a technology company. Then I looked at his face and realized he didn't understand...

http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

[nudone]

amusing nonsense. even vista won't kill microsoft.

[dk70]

Well if you believe net apps are going to have a bigger share of what a gazillion people spend their time on, indirectly money!, I dont think it is nonsense. Google vs. LIVE spell it out big time. Google is also moving into MS area by offering to domain/business solutions. You can see where they are heading. Building up reputation by offering whatever for free (minus the advertising) and then move on to new and perhaps more profitable battle fields. Gmail not just for fun any more

Owning desktop, office, business market might make this redundant though. Where does most money come from and is MS weak in those areas? I think you have to know most likely secret numbers from MS accounting to understand their moves and priorities.

[mwb1100]

I agree with nudone - there's a big difference between 'dead' and simply no longer being an all-controlling monopoly.  Microsoft can still be a successful company even when it's on a more competitive footing with other companies (which is what Graham's article seems to equate with being 'dead').

Even Graham must know this; he talks about MS inheriting its monopoly from IBM, and IBM is hardly dead.  Calling MS dead is simply sensationalism.

Oh, and I'd probably be leery of investing in a start-up whose principals seem completely unaware of Microsoft's potential for disrupting any market related to personal computing - even if it's 'Web 2.0'.  I'm not saying that they should be scared necessarily, but they should at least be aware.  I'm pretty sure that Google doesn't completely discount Microsoft, even if MS doesn't scare them.

[mouser]

Interesting reply article at http://suniltanna.com/random/2007/04/10/competing-with-microsoft-is-dead-to-paul-graham/

The first thing to understand is who Paul Graham is. He’s a venture capitalist. He invests in tech start-ups. Yes he has a tech/programming background, but today he’s basically about investing in small tech start-ups with the idea that one of them will grow huge and make him a big pile of money to add to the big pile of money that he’s already got. Nothing wrong with that - although you do have to realize that it colors his arguments throughout.
...the real reason that Paul Graham thinks that Microsoft is "dead" is simply because the kind of start-ups that he is involved with, are no longer trying to compete with, nor displace, Microsoft. In other words, he’s saying that his start-ups aren’t going to try to take a chunk out of Microsoft’s $44.2 billion (and growing) annual revenue. Or to put in other words, competing with Microsoft as a business-plan, at least as far as Paul Graham is concerned, is what is really dead.

[f0dder]

Better start distributing the SSRIs.

I think this a lot of people would get a hefty serotonin boost if Microsoft went bust, so wouldn't it be irresponsible to also feed them with re-uptake inhibitors? You might as well throw in some MAO blockers while you're at it, then

[iphigenie]

well i do understand his point. But i do think it is a case of apple and oranges.

A few years ago if you were in the tech or software business, then you were scared of MS coming in and stealing your market - by launching their own vaporware, that could be enough!

Nowadays most start ups are in the web arena, and in that market the one to be scared off is google - piles of cash, a brand that is still very strong, and still fast enough to react quickly.

I don't think it means MS is dead, even as a threat. I think its just a sign that most new ventures are in the web arena. If you are in the desktop software arena you probably are still scared of them killing your product with a 2 line press release...

It also shows that most of those startups aren't all that clued up about the industry they are in. If you are a startup you should be wary and informed about a lot of possible threats, not the just the big obvious one. There are a lot of very cash rich high tech giants that are funding lots of internal start ups and buying others and if you are not aware of the risk that people like MS, IBM, Oracle, CA, Adobe, Symantec etc. might step all over your little niche one day... then you are not doing your risk management properly

[zridling]

Paul's article was definitely written to be techmemed. However, Microsoft has not had a good decade. Sure it's had successes, but its stock continues to take a beating, Vista can't be called "secure" by any measure now (with five "critical" updates in the first 9 days of April already), Office 2007 floundering, Zune is a bust, Xbox is great, but still losing cash, MS-OOXML is desperately chasing ODF in the ISO standard category, and Google running circles around the company at every turn. Say what you will, but Microsoft doesn't innovate, and there's where Paul isn't worried. The only thing Microsoft can do is buy him out, but spend one day in Vista and you'll see how far Microsoft has gone astray. There's no excitement either at the company, with its employees (known now more for their daily defections than their acquisitions), and certainly not with any of its software. The only real new desktop application they've built in the last 12 years was OneNote, and OneNote 2007 took a couple of steps backward on usability (e.g., the autosave feature is a disaster). I could go on and on. Sure, Microsoft has enough cash to last another 50 years in some capacity.

Meanwhile open source continues its encroachment everywhere — from phones to servers to application software to the desktop OS.

[f0dder]

Heh, that "linuxisbetter" page is pretty retarded. It has some decent points, but there's just sooo much wrong with it. But that's a topic of it's own.