
(2007) Microsoft Is Dead - swah
http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html
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tgb29
Is Microsoft still dead? It seems like they've done a better job at reacting
to their competitors.

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existencebox
Microsoft is dead; long live Microsoft.

Disclaimer, I'm a msftie, but the thought of one of these megacorps being
"dead" is a fun one. I can understand where he's coming from, MSFT is no
longer the thousand pound gorilla in the room that it was when it was the ONLY
tech superpower at that scale, but at the same time, I see it as being in a
new stage of corporate existence: as a force of nature, think "glacial". It
will simply keep existing, despite any successes or failures otherwise. It
will keep being implacable at its core competencies until or perhaps even
after they cease to be relevant. (PG cited IBM, and while one might say
they're "dead" from a "pioneering"-relevancy/world shaking standpoint, they
continue to exist, push a business goal forward, and control massive amounts
of enterprise mindshare) Momentum is a powerful force, and these companies,
living or not, are still really damn heavy. (this combined with MS making
moves that I'm, both as an employee and long time pro-unix anti-ms grouch, I'm
surprisingly happy with, which undeniably adds some "life" into what might
otherwise be more static)

