

Microsoft is dead - qbraksa
http://blog.braksa.com/2013/03/microsoft-is-dead/

======
junto
Their Surface tablets don't appear to have sold very well, but to claim they
are "dead" seems more than a little batty? Microsoft appears to be alive and
well in the enterprise.

As an example, Microsoft (with Azure) is doing the same as Amazon in the cloud
space. Now with Azure VMs and Azure websites, even more so. Websites on PHP or
node.js? Hadoop? Go for it.

Want to run your own VM image.. fine, just upload it, Microsoft don't give a
crap what OS you run. They offer pages and pages of VM flavors built by the
community: <http://vmdepot.msopentech.com/List/Index>

I think that Microsoft are starting to get it. In my opinion they are entering
the next phase of their lifecycle. Microsoft are starting to realise that they
need to be open to survive. Google on the other hand, appear to be delving
into their 'dark years' of wall-building and blocking, which Microsoft went
through and (I believe) are starting to emerge out of the other side of (just
sprouting seedlings, but still).

Several years ago people like Scott Hanselmann evangelized the open sourcing
ASP.NET stack. It was hard to do and a huge fight in Microsoft, but it is now
out there and this has started a conceptual change within Microsoft.
<http://www.msopentech.com> is the next _big_ step. The first job for the
OpenTech team was officially supporting a port of Redis to Windows. I expect
we will will see more of the same. Want to keep track? Want to make some pull
requests (they will be accepted)? Pop on over to
<https://github.com/MSOpenTech>

I bet that in ten or twenty years Microsoft will still be here (not dead) and
going strong and still paying me good dividends. They may still have no great
tablet offering, but then a jack of all trades is a master of none, so as long
as they stay good at several things, who cares if others endeavors fail. In my
opinion, I'm glad they tried to make a tablet. At they tried, even if the
first try has failed.

<rant> This forum is about embracing the making of things, about supporting
the doing and not sitting back and procrastinating. To try and fail, is what
this game is all about. I'm not going to knock anyone or any company that
makes a damn good try at making something. People hate Microsoft because of
the twenty years of protectionism and 'evil' monopolistic practices. I can
understand that, but I am the kind of person that also is willing to give
someone a second chance. If you think that you have been so wronged by a
company that 'forced you to use Internet Explorer for such a long time', then
really, first world problem. Grow up. That kind of hatred is just puerile.
This kind of negativity should not be tolerated in such a forum, where the
value of building things is such a core concern.

The same goes for sun-setting Google Reader. Oh Diddums! Bullshit, that's an
opportunity! Go build another RSS reader if people are so vocal about losing
this product. Make something better. Get off your fucking arse and stop
whining. Google gave you something for free, now they took it away. Oh well,
life goes on. </rant>

It will also be interesting to see where Google sit in twenty years. My gut
feeling is that Google are about to start their protectionist phase. In twenty
years we may well be talking about them in the same way we do Microsoft. The
reality is that all companies when they reach a certain scale become
cumbersome. That hinders them, and to continue revenue they are forced to
protect their market.

~~~
qbraksa
Um ... well obviously they're starting to get it but it's not like they had a
choice. And maybe it's too late, I don't know.

Beside, you talked about how this forum is about embracing the making of
things, Well I guess we all agree about that, BUT let's not forget that
actually Paul Graham, the guy behind HN actually wrote the original "Microsoft
is Dead" essay back in 2007 , so maybe you should tell him that he should grow
up or whatever too !

------
russell
Amusingly enough it links to an old pg essay (2007) of the same title. pg's
essay was written just before I started following HN, so I found it
interesting. pg mentions how IBM faded from dominance of an earlier
generation. That struck a nostalgia cord with me. Back in the late 80's
Gartner or somesuch presented a trial presentation to my company on how IBM
was going to double in sales in the next 5 years. I thought, no they arent.
And it turned out IBM had hit their sales peak and went into a decline. Sic
transit gloria.

------
jpxxx
If you start thinking of Microsoft as a consumer software firm that smartly
migrated into more lucrative and long-term enterprise/service segments,
they're doing just fine.

People will properly forget about them once their products are inevitably
purged from most households.

------
michaelwww
Author has obviously never heard the "Third Time's a Charm for Microsoft"
idea, which contains some truth based on the historical record. This is a
rebuilding a refocusing period for Microsoft, and the outcome on tablets is by
no means a foregone conclusion.

------
pasbesoin
I've heard the argument, more than once, that the best thing the DOJ could
have done for MS would have been to break it up.

They had several very competitive components.

A lot of subsequent innovation seems to have become mired in a morass of
bureaucracy and chair throwing.

