Microsoft is Dead: The Cliffs Notes | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft is Dead: The Cliffs Notes

paulgraham.com

29 pointspg25 comments

Apropos of Microsoft versus Google

A senior researcher from Google gave a talk at the compter science colloquium at my institution in December 2005. It was supposed to be about such things as the Google Maps API, but it really was a talk about how great it was to work at Google.

At the time, while doing research for my Strategic Defenestration Initiative (another story), I had read an editorial (URL: http://linux.sys-con.com/read/84967.htm -- the editor could use some editing) in Linux SYS CON which argued that LAMP and open source technology enabled Google and Amazon.com to grow "...quickly into industry leaders." The author pointed out that Amazon and Google were successful partly because LAMP technology allowed them to compete on an equal footing with Fortune 500 companies. And now they were successful enough to replace their open source Linux and Apache infrastructure with proprietary software systems (Windows) if they wanted, but they had not done so.

During the question and answer period, I asked the speaker whether Google had the financial and technical means to migrate their servers from Linux to Windows. He replied that they could do this. I couldn't resist: I then asked the speaker whether Google would go ahead and migrate all their servers to Windows.

His reply brought down the house: "if we did that, 90 percent of our engineers would quit on the spot."

One of two questions:

1. Why would they quit?

2. Why is this funny?

XP is stable. It loads executables, runs them, moves files around etc, without much fuss. Google's code runs mostly on interpreters, so...wtf? The only people who should care are the accountants who would have to pay Microsoft. I mean: Is the punchline, "Ha, ha, google's engineers really are as immature as the bean bag chairs suggest"?

(I withdraw my question if the answer is, "Because they wouldn't want to spend months on useless administrative tasks like re-installing OSes.")

Disclaimer: I haven't programmed on Windows in a very long time, and the only time I did it was in a cocoon of an intro programming class in VS.NET where we didn't have to program anything that was either useful or interesting.

However, one of the more substantive complaints about Windows I've heard (beyond the usual instability and insecurity) is that it isn't easily programmable. You can't (I've read) effortlessly connect small, well-designed, single-purpose programs together with things like pipes, redirection, etc. And, most programs by default (again, I've read) are inextricably attached to their GUIs, so you can't make them scriptable like you can with a command-line Unix tool plus a shell script. That would mightily suck for anyone who's used to the high level of programmability in Unix.

I think the most interesting thing about article is that people who fall into the "old news" camp probably didn't need the Cliffs Notes to understand what Paul meant. Once I understood what the original essay was about, I wasn't reminded of Microsoft's balance sheet, nor did I think they would be going out of business. The fact that they aren't non-existent but are no longer relevant just seems... intuitive.

I completely agree with this sentiment, because I feel the same way. This means that the Cliffs Notes response was "old old news" :)

I think the truth is that Microsoft is not dead but simply no longer relevant. Eight years ago you would expect a VC to ask you why Microsoft would not choose to compete against you. Or alternately you would make the case that Microsoft might buy you out as an exit strategy. Today you would substitute Google or Yahoo for Microsoft. So in effect to startups Microsoft has truly become irrelevant.

(Submitted under comment in Don's blog. Hopefully it will be approved.)

Don,

I believe Microsoft's demise is more closely related to Apple and Google than you have thought.

Google - easy one, GMail and Google Doc basically replaced the MS office suite I purchased in '98

Apple - based on Paul Kedrosky's observations, Vista sales is highly correlated to PC sales and once those numbers are normalized, "it looks like Vista sales are tracking on par with XP, and no better than that" (http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2007/03/26/playing_parse_t.html).

So from the indications of recent AAPL stock price - what if Apple continues to gain shares in the PC market? Upon purchasing a new iMac, my dad (retired) have found out that switching to Os X is easy as long as solitaire is installed.

It saddens me that people needed the Cliff's Notes (Registered, Trademark, OMG WE PWNZ YOU) to understand what Paul was getting at.

I didn't actively think about it; however, when I submitted my YC app, Microsoft didn't even enter my mind as a potential competitor. I guess they COULD be, but it is a remote concern. Paul basically just put into words what was being subconsciously realized in the minds of web-geeks everywhere.

After reading comments on Slashdot (not generally a source for enlightened comments, I know), I also can't believe how people fixated on the "everyone uses Apples" remark. It should be obvious that Paul was referring to the group of innovative, young people that are developing the next wave of software.

And I am writing this from a Mac. (Yay!)

Someone saying 8 years ago that web apps would take the majority of desktop applications out of the picture people would say she is crazy. If today you accept that fact, then possibly u accept that Microsoft has at least been minimized as a potential threat.

But, if someone even today haven't seen the move away desktop apps, then they will never understand what PG meant.

If you compare the 17 acquisitons Vs the 9 that Google did in 2006, the conclusions are obvious...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_acquired_by_Microsoft_Corporation#2006

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_acquisitions

'In fact "Microsoft is Dead" was what we in the trade call a metaphor.'

It kind of saddens me that this clarification was necessary, but at least I got a good laugh out of it :)

The Cliff Notes probably aren't the whole story: the "Microsoft is Dead" and "Cliff Notes" essays were released in the midst of the selection process for Y Combinator's 2007 summer funding program. Interesting timing...

Care to explain? I see no relevant connection.

Actually, it's true that it wasn't a coincidence. I've been doing nothing but reading applications all day, and I missed real work. I wanted to write something, but I couldn't take the time to write a proper essay, which takes weeks. So I just wrote down something I'd been thinking about lately.

(If you were suggesting I wrote it to attract attention to YC, the time to have done that would have been before the application deadline. This is the least useful time to attract attention.)

The first alternative is what I thought: that you were probably taking time away to write. The piece somehow reminded of a time when I was in the middle of doing my taxes and took 45 minutes off to solve a puzzle: dissect an 8x8x27 cubic inch parallelpiped into four pieces that can be reassembled into a cube.

I was a bit surprised at so many people jumping up in arms over the declaration of Microsoft's death. The article was quite clear in what it was getting at -- I could only guess that people are inferring the wrong things because they didn't actually read it. And even then, when I first read the article title, I thought: Yep, sounds about right.

The problem with the net is that the hordes of people who do not and may never understand metaphors or the rhetorical history of phrases such as "X is dead" will swamp you every time with their literalism. At some point you have to filter them out and trust that the people who are able to understand have understood and move on.

The idea I got from reading few of the responses was that some people chose to only read the title and copy-paste random fragments totally out of context to show Microsoft's not going broke anytime soon. Doh. That was never pg's argument.

It's a good thing people react and then look. Google "microsoft is dead" and the number 2 result is headlined "Eight signs Microsoft is dead in the water - MarketWatch" dated May 3, 2006.

Is Dow Jones also irrelevant if no one is paying attention to it?

i don't think this move was necessary; people who didn't get the last article won't be placated by this article. people who did get it, will think as they have.

pg, it seems like you took the bait from the angry bloggers.

Ironically, the fact that Microsoft apologists didn't even understand pg's explicitly clear article in the first place is yet another HUGE indicator of why they're dead:

They just don't GET IT. ;)

Paul says he wanted to be the first to call MS's decline.

I think John Walker did this more than 10 years ago: http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/msapogee.html

I can't understand why you Mr. Graham must again explain you thoughts. If someone don't want to understand, he won't understand even after ten explanations.

PG, Why did you wish to be the first one to call it, btw?

I wouldn't say PG is the first to call it. Joel Spolsky wrote an article with same jist a few years back (http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html), and I'm sure less known authors have been calling it before that. It's different when a big name with reputation on the line calls it, but Microsoft's being "dead" has been an open secret for a while.

I'm guessing I fall into this crowd: "The other half, the younger half, will complain that this is old news."

It was a running joke on Slashdot for years to say "FreeBSD is dead".

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