Paul Graham Claims "Microsoft is Dead" 536
netbuzz writes "He doesn't mean dead as in six feet under, but rather that the software giant no longer instills the kind of fear — particularly among entrepreneurs — that it did back in the day when it was making road kill out of companies like Netscape. Microsoft obits have been around for almost as long as the company, but Graham's stature, style and devoted following are likely to make this one a classic."
It Depends, Really (Score:5, Interesting)
They may yet win (Score:0, Interesting)
-Windows Vista with pretty good media center capabilities
-Windows Home Server
-XBOX 360
-Zune
-Windows Media player
-MSN Live
-Various subscription services like XBOX-Live, Zune marketplace
It's quite a line-up and it's becoming more and more integrated.
On the corporative side, while many people prefer usign Unix for certain applications, I dont see Microsoft losing it's overwhelming dominance anytime soon. And with SQL Server 2005, they might increase it in the long run.
To me this story is not different from a iPod killer story. Maybe with the exception that the iPod is one product and it could actually happen one day.
Re:It Depends, Really (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not? Perhaps he should be telling the 100,000+ plus former auto workers that profitability doesn't matter, and see what they have to say.
Look at it from Graham's Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that tells you a lot about Paul Graham's everyday environment. He's working with startups, he's trying to put together teams of the bright and innovative, and what he's finding is that most of these people are not using Microsoft software.
I suppose you have to allow for a bit of statistical bias there. Since Mr, Graham is (presumably) involved in selecting these people, it's entirely possible that a subconscious selection criteria might be "doesn't do windows" or something similar.
Even so, I think he's got a point. How much of that market share is down to corporations who bulk-order generic beige boxes based on buying guidelines that are fifteen to twenty years old? How much is down to private homes where someone wanted to "get a computer" without realising there was a choice, or where the major criteria was that it should be "the same as the one at work".
It wouldn't surprise me at all to find that the Microsoft market share among the up-and-coming wave of computer innovators is actually very slim. And if that is in fact the case, Microsoft should indeed be worried.
Re:The article sounded credible until I read. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
The last number I saw was that Macs now counted for 6% of new PC sales. 6% is huge from a historical perspective, especially given the bulk of new PC purchases are businesses that usually lag the trend.
And I think his point was just that among innovators and edge pushers, Windows is rare -- would anyone really argue with that? While I don't think OS X owns that arena (Linux obviously being another major choice), I don't think you're going to find many installs of Vista.
While I disagree with some of Paul's points, ultimately I think he is absolutely right -- Microsoft's initiatives over the past couple of years have almost entirely been duds. No one really cares what Microsoft is doing, except when they know that it's going to be forced on them (Vista), which is remarkably different than how it has historically been. What do you know -- I just wrote about this [yafla.com].
The world is getting to be a much better place when Microsoft is freed to compete on actual merit, and not just one division hobbling another based upon the belief that they were their only real competition.
Re:Not Yet (Score:1, Interesting)
The only mistake I think he made was that more "average people" are voting with their dollars than in the late 80s and early 90s. They have to be coaxed out of their "comfort zone", which can happen, but would be difficult.
I think phase one is that MS loses the technical people, which has pretty much happened (all young technical people I know have either switched or feel "guilty" about not switching, it's the old farts that are hanging on).
It's just that bringing that message to the people is going to be slow... But I believe that it will get there. Especially since I don't believe MS can deliver anymore, unless they do something drastic.
As a side note, I would sum up this essay as, MS used to care only about competition. Now they think they've won forever, so they've stopped competing, just when they needed to (like ignoring IE for 5 years).
Re:Look at it from Graham's Perspective (Score:0, Interesting)
50 Billion and an army of Lawyers (Score:4, Interesting)
They can always wake up, decide to toss out the old OS code, or run it in virtual mode, then build a brand new OS from scratch. Maybe this time, they can let Cutler run wild without without the need for backward-compatibility and make something worth looking at? As Vista is quickly becoming this decade's Windows M.E, Microsoft is going to have to consider taking the big leap.
In the mean time, they can still just sue the crap out of any entreprenuer, right or wrong, because there are few with that kind of cash and time on their hands. Most if not all would just settle, giving Microsoft access to their inventions anyway.
Re:Look at it from Graham's Perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
More importantly, buying guidelines that say "we need Office, therefore we need Windows", "it's what everyone else uses", "it's the industry standard", "we don't want to retrain everyone on a completely new system"
All of those points have some merit, but none of them are insurmountable. On the other hand, the managers who fear retraining hassles the most are the ones who haven't figured out that it's possible to put e-mail somewhere other than your inbox, that resizing a picture in Word does not reduce its file size, that file != folder, and that an effective presentation does not consist of 120 slides with copy-pasted paragraphs and tacky clip art.
Re:4% of what? (Score:3, Interesting)
--- and the chances are good some garbled version of it will make it to Slashdot.
But you have to be realistic: at any given time there are only a half dozen or so versions of the Mac on the market, compared to the dozens - perhaps hundreds of variants - on the generic Wintel PC. The office workhorse. The PC on the shop floor. The PC at Point-of-Sale. The PC in the military. The PC in the game room...
You can multiply these examples almost endlessly. Market share is what drove Apple to the x86 platform. To NVIDIA and ATI. To Boot Camp. When you need to demonstrate hardware and software compatibility with Windows to remain competitive there is no longer any question about who is in the driver's seat.
MS the new Sony? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Look at it from Graham's Perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
Google was small once too.
Totally stupid, ......and typical. (Score:5, Interesting)
You see, eventually these folks, flush with their startup money have to evolve into businesses with CUSTOMERS. This is the moment when all their foresight, vision and knowledge gets kicked in the ass by the reality of their target audience, who whether they like it or not, are generally using Windows in one form or another. I see this all the time. Awesome ideas, cool marketing strategies, beaten senseless by a a few basic questions: "This is cool, but will it work with Exchange? No? Damn, we cant switch. Sorry." "You mean we cant SSO with this?" Or "Okay, but can I control this through GPOs or can we LDAP it with Active Directory? No? Damn. Sorry, we cant switch."
No, Microsoft is not doing anything intreguing, but I think that for the moment(though not too much longer) they have enough entrenchment to fight off all but the most innovative of ideas. Microsoft can still zap Apple any time they want by stopping MS Office development on the MAC. This will change too, but if your business docs are in nothing but Word and Excel, you are not going anywhere soon.
One of the reasons for the dotcom bust was that too many startups never got around to the thought of what their customers WANTED, thinking that they could just convince them that their idea was so cool, so sweet, that they would just jump on it, without business considerations being a factor.
Its just like parental pride in a newborn baby. No matter what it looks like, they think the child is beautiful, when in reality, it could be a hideous creature and they would never know it.
If you are an Entreprenuer who believes that they have a target market large enough to pay back their VC without some form of Windows compatibility, they are headed for a fall, just like all the others before them. You dont find a Google every day of the week.
Re:What goes around come around (Score:2, Interesting)
In short, Microsoft beat out Johnson & Johnson this year to take the top spot in the annual "reputation poll". From the article:
Microsoft toppled Johnson & Johnson and its baby-products business from its seven-year position as the company with the best corporate reputation, according to an annual poll by Harris Interactive and The Wall Street Journal.
Gates' reputation as a corporate leader contributed to an improvement in the company's emotional appeal, the Journal reported. While some respondents faulted Microsoft for bullying its competitors and unfairly monopolizing the software business, the Journal said, that criticism is less "biting and pervasive" than it used to be.
Harris surveyed 7,886 Americans online or by telephone last summer and asked them to name two companies they think have the best reputations, and two that have the worst, the paper said.
It collected the 60 companies mentioned most, and had them rated online by 22,480 Americans, giving them a score and ranking. They were rated on 20 attributes in six categories, including financial performance, social responsibility, emotional appeal and workplace environment, the paper said.
Re:4% of what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps this isn't the case in flyover country, but something is up in Apple's favor around here. And btw - before I became an Apple fanboi again, I wrote a website / protoblog test-case based on "John Dvorak's school of getting hitcounts" called "the apple doomsday clock". Aside from using every OS under the sun (even IRIX) professionally, I'd always considered myself a platform agnostic. I went back to Apple once the varient of my fave OS came out - NeXTstep. I keep thinking I might put Vista on dual-boot or parallels at some point, but I just can't find the need (I keep my gaming on consoles largely, as well as my collection of fridge-sized of 80s gamecabs and that's the only reason I can see Windows being relevant at this point. I'm also addicted to RTCW - which you can run on a C64 for all intensive purposes.).
Re:The desktop is dead?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
But word processing? I doubted it myself, but I really like Google Docs and Spreadsheets - it allows me to work on certain things on any computers without dragging files around - and I can collaborated on a word document or spreadsheet with a ton of people without a ton of file swapping happening - I just have to invite who I want to look or give them read/write access - and I can see their revisions easily.
That is the unhyped, 0 buzzword reason I like it.
Not dead but changing (Score:4, Interesting)
If you say "using a Web interface" instead of "putting applications on the Web" then there is a great advantage, at least for corporate applications. And it was in great part Microsoft who made it that way.
A typical example is a project I did a couple of years ago. There was an application in Access, about 2000 lines of code, that was a nightmare to maintain. Every time one of the 100+ users changed some configuration in his computer, the support people had to figure why that application had stopped working. I was given that application with detailed instructions: "fix this shit".
So I rewrote it, to a PHP application in a Linux server running Apache and a Postgres database. People now use it in several different browsers, with no problem at all. You can even tweak PHP to send Excel spreadsheets, by making Internet Exploder believe an HTML table is a spreadsheet and run Excel to open it.
You are right that CPU-heavy applications like video editing will remain at the desktop computer, but I see a definitive trend for most enterprise applications to migrate to Web-centric applications.
Re:Look at it from Graham's Perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
Times change.
They never got nicer and were ignored. (Score:3, Interesting)
FTFA, and yes an instant classic:
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.
Slap, how truth stings. It's been over for a while, but people don't realize it because M$ spends about a billion dollars a month telling the world they are number one. Even grandmas are seeing through it.
Re:They never got nicer and were ignored. (Score:3, Interesting)
Are they? Are they really? It's funny, because every single PC that isn't my own that I've seen recently has run Windows. People run Windows, and get on with their lives. And frankly, I very much doubt you can claim that Windows is losing somehow when the market share of Apple and Linux is utterly dwarfed by that of Windows, even if Windows' is slowly shrinking.
Re:It's not dead yet (Score:5, Interesting)
That little microcosm pretty much defines the limits of the industries that evolved around the commercial computer-on-a-chip.
Thirty years experience in programming for the micro computer.
Thirty years experience in buying, stealing, licensing or otherwise acquiring other companies' programs and adding hack after hack to it to "increase" features and "fix" bugs.
That is probably how it should read. MS didnt write anything they currently sell. They acquired it and revised it and added stuff to it. There is a very very long list of all of MS' acquisitions someplace online listing them all - including every part of Office, the entire graphics engine (including DirectX), IE, the Windows GUI, The WinXP theme changes, DOS, Win16, IIS, Exchange, and on and on. Acquired and added to by MS.
Yeah, maybe that qualifies as programming... but to me, the programmer is the person who wrote the apps to begin with... the work MS did is called modifying - which is done by programmers as well... but the way you have it worded makes it sound like MS actually programmed the stuff they sell.
Re:It's not dead yet (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The article sounded credible until I read. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, that 4% number you are quoting is PPC Macs only - that company lists Intel Macs as a different category, and lists them at 2%, with a a monthly growth of about 0.2% steady for the past year. Oh yeah, and there's a poll on their website about what's the best browser. Safari is 2nd (after Firefox) with 16%. Given that Safari is only available on the Mac...
Well, don't trust any statistics you haven't faked yourself, as the saying goes.
Its a suicide (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft is killing Microsoft. They decided that they owned the developers and then they tried to milk them. It was only a matter of time that those who brought home the bread and butter would begin to let go and go somewhere else. It worked that way for Apple before them.
I bought an Apple II and upgraded the 48k memory to 64k way back in the stone age of computers. Then I decided to do some serious business programming and found that Apple owned programmers. They said if you want the chore done, hire Claris Works. Well I wasn't rich enough for them so I found a machine (Microsoft) OS that I could get data on. That by the way was a difference produced by an Industrial Spy at IBM. When the PC came out the earliest design was stolen by a Japanese spy who had clones on the market ahead of the release. This caused the data to be available that made programmers love getting into MS machines and their OS. It closed the door on the "Apple Model." Now MS wants to own the programmers who make their product live.
Only a few years ago, I noted that I could pay a horrid price for Visual Studio because I was an American but had I lived in China or India, MS had versions for sale at less than 1/10th the US price. Often they distributed in their development centers for free. This made me pay for my competition. That is a business model doomed to die. If I pay the price I pay for the end of my business. Figure this one out.
Re:It's not dead yet (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh huh...
That is how an entrepreneur thinks.
What is most important to Microsoft when making acquisition decisions? People are the most important factor in any acquisition. Microsoft looks for talented engineering teams with vision and passion and experienced management teams. Second is technology and IP that can add value to an existing Microsoft product. Third is the opportunity to acquire stand alone products for existing customers. Examples include Visio, Hotmail, and Vermeer. Another, more rare, decision point is the opportunity to enter whole new markets. Great Plains and PlaceWare are excellent examples.
How does Microsoft decide to acquire rather than build internally? This is the toughest question in any acquisition discussion. Microsoft has thousands of very talented software engineers that can build just about anything. How can you justify paying hundreds of millions or even billions for something a team of 30 engineers could build in a year or two. That translates to about $12M of development cost versus a huge acquisition cost. Technology is not the issue here. It is all about marketing channels, sales expertise, and market leadership in segments where Microsoft is not strong.
It comes down to this; if the company in question has a product that is squarely in the domain of an existing Microsoft product than the valuation is a small premium over the internal development cost. If the company has market leadership in a new product space or market segment than the valuation goes up significantly.
Entrepreneurs should remember this. The "barriers to entry" are most often market position, not technical brilliance. I have heard start-ups say "we have a two year lead on our closest competitor". In fact, I have said it myself at previous start-ups. I was wrong. Most technologies can be replicated by a talented engineering group within a year or less. Many times a similar technology can be licensed immediately and a new product shipped within months.
Many start-ups have failed by focusing too much on their technology and not enough on the value they bring to customers and the channels they use to service the customer. Many times the early innovator fizzles, and a "fast follower" comes in and makes all the money. "Microsoft will acquire my company" [typepad.com]
Re:Nothing lasts for ever (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Its a suicide (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me start off by appologizing for this comment. I don't know why, but I am in a nit-picking mood and so I post...
Microsoft is killing Microsoft. They decided that they owned the developers and then they tried to milk them. It was only a matter of time that those who brought home the bread and butter would begin to let go and go somewhere else. It worked that way for Apple before them.
I bought an Apple II and upgraded the 48k memory to 64k way back in the stone age of computers. Then I decided to do some serious business programming and found that Apple owned programmers. They said if you want the chore done, hire Claris Works. Well I wasn't rich enough for them so I found a machine (Microsoft) OS that I could get data on.
Coincidently, I too started programming on an Apple II and eventually went to IBM PC development about the time that Borland sold their Turbo series of compilers. However, I just don't understand what point you are trying to make. Apple never owned me, and neither has Microsoft. I don't remember ever being "forced" to use (or even using) ClarisWorks. By the way for the young people out there, using ClarisWorks (which was for the early Macintosh) to program back then would be like using Microsoft Access to program today. The only reason I move to the IBM PC was because people tended to use the same computers at home that they had in the office (not to mention 80 columns of text and a hard drive - or hard card). I still have fond memories of the Apple II.
After microsoft came out with Visual Studio, I think developer support from Microsoft has been second to none. Of course, they are ensuring that you use their public API and not the ones that they themselves use. Overtime, I think this is becoming a non-issue. (Yes I know I criticize Microsoft in an earlier post, and I still think Microsoft is guilty of many sins, but overcharging for a compiler suite is not one of them.)
Well I wasn't rich enough for them so I found a machine (Microsoft) OS that I could get data on. That by the way was a difference produced by an Industrial Spy at IBM. When the PC came out the earliest design was stolen by a Japanese spy who had clones on the market ahead of the release.
WTF? Back in the 80's, I worked part-time selling those pieces of crap made by Sanyo. Those silver boxes were relatively sleeker than the "boxy" XT, but its compatibility was lacking. It was during this time, a distinction was made between PC compatible and MS-DOS compatible. I don't remember Sanyo coming out prior to the IBM PC, but it was initially more prevelant than IBM due to its cheaper price and IBM insistance of only allowing authorized retailers to actually sell thier product. Eventually IBM loosen this requirement. Oh the days of going to the local Entre' computers and looking at the ridiculously priced computers.
The PC market didn't really take off until the Compaq portable was released. This had more to do with the BIOS being independently developed using clean room techniques and allowing a sudden market of PC clones to materialize (line Bear PC, AST, Toshiba, etc). The abundance of more compatible machines finally killed off the POS Sanyos.
Only a few years ago, I noted that I could pay a horrid price for Visual Studio because I was an American but had I lived in China or India, MS had versions for sale at less than 1/10th the US price. Often they distributed in their development centers for free. This made me pay for my competition. That is a business model doomed to die. If I pay the price I pay for the end of my business. Figure this one out.
What's to figure out? Other than your point... After the introduction of Windows, Microsoft's compilers were always inexpensive when compared to what the competitors had to offer. I think today, they even have a "free" version. I don't know how China or India figured in your argument, but if I was making a Chinese or Indian wage the compiler, even at 1/10th the US price, would still have the same relative affordability that the US pricing gives American developers.
Re:50 Billion and an army of Lawyers (Score:2, Interesting)
Lawyers do not mix with engineering, just look at Sony. For example, the PSP could have been a superb machine (homebrew apps, full rez video, hard-drive instead of stick) but Sony's legal dept. would not let that happen. As someone else said "you can almost feel the tears of the engineers who made it".
As for money, it mostly means they don't have any "hunger", any desire to actually make something other than look enterprisey. And with money comes bloat, in the form of bureaucracy and people who are there only for the money, not the craft.
Unfortunately, money and lawyers seem to be quite enough to stay in business, so they won't go away until they run out of both. How much damage will they cause until they run out of it? I hope not much.
Re:Look at it from Graham's Perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a long tradition in debate that the one who is making the claim has the burden of proof. I'm not claiming that those who use MS tools are particularly innovate, bright, etc, but you and a number of others are making such a claim about users of other tools.
I'd say this claim about non-MS users is combination of several advertisement propaganda techniques: Assertion (the characteristics associated with non-MS users are presented without evidence), Glittering Generalities (innovate, bright, etc, are somewhat vague positive words that are tied to non-MS users), and Name Calling (MS users don't have these postive characteristics).