paulgraham.com — 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.
Apr 7, 2007 View in Crawl 4
rezistikApr 7, 2007
I like how everyone who read the article uses a mac. Its quite tiring sifting through to digg to find the few people who are not anti-windows.Microsoft isnt dead and i dont think any one i know will switch to overpriced macs including me."All the computer people use Macs now. Windows is for grandmas,"Really? Strange because all of the computer people i know use windows or linux. The only mac users i know of are designersThis article is just another mircosoft hater that is going to get hits because of the very mac friendly digg.Why cant the os-es just get along ?
mephitixApr 7, 2007
I'm usually a big fan of Paul Graham's essays, and even applied and interviewed with YCombinator. However, I can't believe this essay is written by him. It reads like a 15-year-old's blog post. To sum up:He names AJAX as one of the causes for Microsoft's "death". XHR was created by MS for the sole purpose of webapps. He also goes so far as to claim that MS purposely "kept [Javascript] broken for as long as they could." Also, Graham's gloating over AJAX is ridiculous. He claims every application on the desktop can be ported over to the web. Any idea what kind of connection you'd need to get the kind of responsiveness we already see on the desktop? I wholeheartedly agree that data-centric apps can be ported over to the web, but I think Photoshop-like capabilities (I'm talking true capabilities, not simple functions on small images) are still a long ways off.Also, he names Apple as the final cause for MS's death. That entire paragraph reads like a Mac fanboy, with no evidence or factual backing of his statements. "All the computer people use Macs now. Windows is for grandmas, like Macs used to be in the 90s." Seriously, Paul, WTF?"And of course Apple has Microsoft on the run in music too, with TV and phones on the way." I agree Apple kicks MS's ass in industrial design, but if you're in love with a single company like this, it's not just laughable and disgraceful, but it'll also make you ignorant towards other companies' useful products. MS is introducing IPTV on the 360; a friend i've talked to who interviewed at MS said that they've got a beastly competitor to the iPhone and the group is being headed by one of the most intelligent people in the industry. As far as music goes, I heard they're working on successors to the Zune that are much more advanced, and a few of my friends are really interested in the Zune Marketplace offering.The final point of Graham's essay blasts MS for not buying web 2.0 startups and he adds: "Microsoft's biggest weakness is that they still don't realize how much they suck. They still think they can write software in house.". Seriously, I think he wrote this essay when he was drunk or something, or at least didn't do some research:<a class="user" href="http://microsoftstartupzone.com/">http://microsoftstartupzone.com/</a><a class="user" href="http://www.microsoft.com/business/startups/default.aspx">http://www.microsoft.com/business/startups/default.aspx</a><a class="user" href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_acqui.php">http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_acqui.php</a>
Closed AccountApr 7, 2007
The number of people switching to Linux and Mac are fairly insignificant at the moment, and Jazh hit the nail on the head for the reason - it is a pain to have to relearn software, let alone a complete operating system. And you can't tell me that Linux makes it easy, just the fact that you have to recompile the kernel to install graphics drivers can prove that wrong.I'm sure one day there'll be a Linux flavour available that competes with Windows for the mass market, but at the moment it's dangerously lacking easy to access helpful information that doesn't require hunting (or at least last time I checked it lacked that, which was fairly recently). You can rant and rave about how easy something is, but when you've done it a thousand times before you're going to say that regardless.
gerrybotApr 7, 2007
Sorry, but I'm reading this on a PC running Windows, and I'm as much Web 2.0 as anybody. I didn't think Paul Graham would make such wild sweeping statements, but then it's easy to have a skewed perspective when you're living in a Mac/techie community. Rest assured, the rest of the world is stuck with MS for a little bit longer!
hackmyballsApr 7, 2007
How much is M$ paying to keep this story under the radar?They're dead, soooooo dead!
treeheadApr 8, 2007
This is old news.;)
Closed AccountApr 21, 2007
I agree alot of microsoft products suck, but I do love both the Xbox & the Xbox 360. Also I think that they would have been much better off creating a Xbox Portable Handheld than creating the Zune.
skitboxkillaMay 30, 2007
I reckon that Microsoft could do a lot worse than to release their UI running over FreeBSD, with an emulator supporting Windows-only apps. If their environment is as good as they assume it is, then they have nothing to fear: their hardened consumers will stick with it (and they'll boost their security profile in one go).As for online; it's inevitable. Whilst I can see docile apps like 'Joost' increasing exponentially, processor-intensive applications like Photoshop, Maya etc. aren't going to benefit in the medium-term. They already co-exist in certain instances, but independence from the 'net is essential in most cases. Besides, the bandwidth overhead for a serious creative application running entirely online would be horrible!