

Why I disagree when people say Microsoft is no longer leading the way - rbanffy
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/not-sad-at-all

======
grellas
Perception is interesting here. I have worked with startups in Silicon Valley
since 1984 and remember the ever-increasing dismay throughout the period
extending right up to the early-to-mid-90s of the "UNIX guys" (that is how I
saw them) as they were almost ready to explode watching Microsoft apparently
taking over first the consumer desktop and then the enterprise with what they
saw as crappy products relative to the far more robust systems they worked
with and developed. All they could do was shake their heads in dismay and
bemoan the fact that consumers and enterprise customers could be so forced to
conform to the lowest common denominator that DOS/Windows and their progeny
begat - all the while complaining of Bill Gates's "evil empire."

I mention this only to emphasize, for those who are younger, how all-pervasive
this dispirited mindset was back then. Of course, this all changed with the
Internet and the rest is history.

I think this piece reflects that mindset perfectly: Microsoft sucks? Of
course, it always has!

I don't even know that this is fair characterization of what Microsoft did or
did not achieve back in the day (I am not a techie guy) but I do know that it
was how Microsoft was overwhelmingly _perceived_ by many of the tech-savvy
people even as it was crushing all competitors.

~~~
mixmax
it's also interesting to note that Microsoft, a company that many software
experts agree makes inferior products, is also a huge market leader. This
hints at something a lot of technically minded people oversee: Sales and
marketing is what drives a company. Microsoft is probably the most savvy tech
company out there when it comes to sales. Yes, they are stuffing things down
people's throat, abusing their monopoly, and generally being a nuisance. But
it works, and it works well.

This steve Ballmer quote sums it up pretty well _"well, we've been accused of
a lot of things, but not being able to make money isn't one of them"_

~~~
shabda
I was searching for the quote,

well, we've been accused of a lot of things, but not being able to make money
isn't one of them

And all I can find is this HN ref. When did Ballmer say that?

~~~
mixmax
If memory seves me correctly it was in revenge of the nerds.

------
michaelvw
This is a minor point, but rumors of IBM's demise are greatly exaggerated.
Last I checked it had a market cap of more than $160B.

One could argue that IBM's PC business is what died, but I'd say Dell did more
to kill that than Microsoft (my guess is MS doesn't care whose hardware they
run on.) The other companies the author described, Xerox and Bell Labs and
Apple, only one is still kicking around in the consumer technology space, and
it almost died along the way too.

The "MS is managed into the toilet" comments seem like the other side of the
"Apple is destroying openness/hobbies" or "Google kills privacy" memes. I read
it as people wishing a particular company was different, more like how the
authors want them to be... open, friendly, innovative and awesome. Like a
digital Santa Claus. Fact is, all of these companies are successful, with
weaknesses and strengths. I'd like a more level-headed comparison of those,
personally, rather than nostalgia.

All of these companies are shifting, like IBM did. Google is really going
after mobile, MS is really going after businesses (with a side quest into the
living room), and Apple is doing it all. It's just interesting to see who's
big bets will pay off.

~~~
Dbug
I'd give Microsoft credit for killing IBM's OS/2. What really created the PC-
compatible market was the creation of "clone" BIOS. I'd give Phoenix credit
for that.

Dell gets credit for being a pretty efficient if not innovative box builder,
first with a major online store (ironically it ran on NeXT software) to sell
over that thing called the World Wide Web which was developed on NeXT
computers.

IBM deserves some blame, if not credit, for allowing Microsoft the foot in the
door with licensing which led to their excessive enrichment. If IBM has
insisted on buying an OS outright, or developed their own, we probably
wouldn't have had the widescale mess known as DOS and Windows. Microsoft
basically bought DOS outright from someone else, so they didn't even innovate
that. DOS/Window success wasn't based on quality, but on licensing and taking
away consumer choice (through dealing with manufacturers and bundling) as the
article points out.

------
JunkDNA
From the headline I had assumed this was going to be another garden variety
"in defense of MS" kind of article. I do think that MS has done some
innovative things here and there, but I agree it's hard to really call them a
"leader". They are an exceptionally good "fast follower".

~~~
jules
Microsoft research is very good though not all of it makes it into production.
I would certainly call them a leader in research compared to other companies.
<http://research.microsoft.com/apps/dp/areas.aspx>

~~~
shaddi
This is true, but for all intents and purposes MSR is a separate company. For
a research lab, where the metric for success is not how much makes it to
production, they are quite good indeed.

------
motters
Microsoft lost its way quite a long time ago. In the 1990s it was pretty much
invincible, but after that things began to unravel. For me the lowlights were:

Windows ME - it self-destructed on me after a few months of usage

Internet Explorer 6 - gave me the best possible incentive to move to Firefox

Windows Genuine (Dis)Advantage - for me was really the final straw

Windows XP was highly successful though, although again they really failed to
do anything very innovative with that OS other than keep it stable. By the end
of 2006 I'd stopped using most of their products, having been a MS stalwart
since Windows 3.1, and I havn't looked back since.

~~~
Dbug
"Windows XP was highly successful though, although again they really failed to
do anything very innovative with that OS other than keep it stable."

Just as some seem to look back on Microsoft and portray it as having been so
good, there seem to be some rose colored glasses looking at XP too. Yes it was
hugely better than earlier consumer versions of Windows, but between it's
inferiority to OS X, and massive number of security holes, and the various
ways people were locked into it, it was pretty sick.

I think it was some of the disappointments of Vista that somehow made XP seem
better in retrospect Sure XP was popular in the sense of it being widespread,
but the same could be said of herpes.

It's sort of like Bush making Reagan and Nixon seem better. Nixon, the
criminal, sure looks saintly now. And as much as some may have disagreed with
Reaganomics, he still came across as honest about his intentions, and likable
with a sense of humor.

Its funny how perspectives age.

~~~
koanarc
You had me until: "Nixon, the criminal, sure looks saintly now." I adjusted
for hyperbole, but still.

Maybe it's only because my generation's closest ties to Nixon are via Hunter
S. Thompson's popular invectives, but I don't know of anybody who thinks that
Dicky M. deserves any more veneration than a kidney stone. But then, I suppose
I never have had a very keen eye, when it comes to finding the inner beauty of
politicians...

------
lukifer
Whatever else they may be doing, Microsoft is sure digging in its heels when
it comes to innovating on the web. Internet Explorer is the primary reason
that web devs can't make wide use of standards like CSS3, <canvas>, and
WebSockets. Even their recent backing of SVG is nearly worthless, given that
most features of SVG are already usable via Raphael and VML.

------
rightonein
Also, I love this author's "Microsoft could be the right place for me, but
then I decided it wasn't". I am pretty sure it was the other way around. It
would be nice to know where such a genius works these days and what are his
great contributions arising from his great wisdom.

~~~
rbanffy
Actually, I never applied for a job there. A good friend of mine who works for
Microsoft scheduled an appointment in my behalf for a job opening he thought I
would be interested, but I guess that, by that time, I was not as enthusiastic
about the job as my interviewer expected and as other candidates were. I was
contacted a couple times in the following years (the last one was about 2001
or 2002) but I have declined interviews since then.

I use to joke that my friend is jeopardizing his own job there every time he
recommends me for job openings.

------
rightonein
Whenever any of guy guys assemble a multi-billion dollar company just by
selling software you let me know. Or at least get a job with one of the
companies you seem so keen to analyze in depth (Google, MS, Apple, IBM). Then
maybe your opinions would count something.

While you sit at your desk analyzing this and that, thousands of business
flourish and make money, thanks to the privacy killers (Google), the imperial
monopolists (Microsoft) or the vertical Nazis (Apple) or the old Nazis (IBM).
What have YOU been doing to change the world like that, huh?

And don't come all "I have been doing Linux!" on me, because the largest
amount of contributors to Linux are the very companies you pathetically try to
bash from your fantastic jobs as code monkeys at ACME International Ltd.

"Hacker" folks need to understand that software is just a tool for business
and consumers to use to get shit done; it's not an end on itself. The massive
success of all these companies, MS included, shows that shit is getting done,
lives are improving, people are making money and being happy.

In the end, that's all that matters. "Experts" have been killing IBM, then
Microsoft, then Oracle, even Apple, for years. These people grow old, retire,
and these companies continue (and will continue) to be successful for a simple
reason: they provide value.

~~~
bad_user
> _"Hacker" folks need to understand that software is just a tool for business
> and consumers to use to get shit done; it's not an end on itself._

You're saying it like "hacker folks" are the only ones with this
"misconception".

When Graham Bell invented the telephone, or when Thomas Edison invented the
radio, or when Einstein developed the relativity theory, or when Benjamin
Franklin did research on electricity ... guess these guys where all thinking
... "what tools to make for businesses and consumers to get shit done".

Yeah, that makes lots of sense :)

~~~
rbanffy
PHBs never learn, do they? ;-)

