Microsoft is Dead??
Monday, April 9, 2007
Microsoft is Dead??
The top posting on Techmeme, yesterday, was a posting by Paul Graham, entitled, "Microsoft is Dead", followed by a whole pile of postings on the subject -- naturally.
Now, there is a lot of wisdom in all of those postings -- in fact, an individual could extract enough wisdom from a small number of those postings to support most any argument, a feat that I am about to demonstrate.
Paul states:
"I was talking to a young startup founder about how Google was different from Yahoo. I said that Yahoo had been warped from the start by their fear of Microsoft. That was why they'd positioned themselves as a "media company" instead of a technology company. Then I looked at his face and realized that he didn't understand."
"Microsoft cast a shadow over the software world for almost 20 years starting in the late 80s. I can remember when it was IBM before them, I ignored this shadow. I never used Microsoft software, so it only affected me indirectly -- for example, in the spam I got from botnets. And because I wasn't paying attention, I didn't notice when the shadow disappeared."
The fact of the matter is -- that shadow has NOT disappeared. I use quotes from Simeon Bateman and Ryan Stewart from a post entitled, "Why Do People Hate Building Desktop Applications", by Ryan Stewart:
"Simeon: And I think paul is right on with the desktop thing. The only reason I would ever consider building an application for the desktop is because apollo lets me do it easily like a web application. "
"I would never NEVER build a desktop application."
"Ryan: At least Simeon realizes there is some benefit to building desktop applications, he just doesn't see why it's worth it to go through the effort. And he's right, building desktop applications has been hard. It's a pain: you have to create a version for each operating system, and most of them look ugly when you're finished."
Obviously, this is exactly the kind of discussion that Microsoft wants. This is wisdom -- not my kind -- but wisdom, nonetheless. The longer people see the business that way the more dominant that shadow.
As a builder of a desktop application that can make development of additional applications much easier, I am extremely sensitive to the spread of such baloney.
I must add a couple of quotes from, "Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing."
"Paul obviously wrote his headline to grab attention and attract links to his blog."
"Hyperbole is the weapon of the Web 2.0 pontificates, Facts are ignored in favor of Myopic observations."
"The Paul Graham apologists are already coming to his defense saying "he said dead, but what he really meant was that Microsoft is not feared anymore". Sorry to burst your bubble but it was never Microsoft's intent to scare anyone."
Yea, sure -- tell that to Jennifer Edstrom and Marlin Eller, the authors of "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates.", published in 1998.
That's enough -- I must assume that I have made my point.
Whether you agree or not, you will cherry pick all those postings for wisdom to support your preconceived position, just as I have done. That, in it's self, is the way things were meant to be -- we can talk about our individual viewpoints till hell freezes over.
The presence, or non-presence of a cloud will NOT change until we convert our collective viewpoint into some kind of political action.
The blogosphere was started as a reaction to the mainstream media and it's usurped control over the power of the people. The blogosphere is now part of that MSM. Nothing has changed for the majority of the people -- no sense my getting aroused -- I can't participate in the discussion, except by mailing a copy of this post to a number of well known gatekeepers.
I just happen to be dumb enough to still do a little wishful thinking.
Thanks for listening
Doug Skoglund
SandS Software, Inc.
skoglund@pdmsb.com
This page posted at http://nationalcomputerassociation.comwhere you can join a discussion aimed at creating a real answer to that cloud.
Microsoft is Dead??
The top posting on Techmeme, yesterday, was a posting by Paul Graham, entitled, "Microsoft is Dead", followed by a whole pile of postings on the subject -- naturally.
Now, there is a lot of wisdom in all of those postings -- in fact, an individual could extract enough wisdom from a small number of those postings to support most any argument, a feat that I am about to demonstrate.
Paul states:
"I was talking to a young startup founder about how Google was different from Yahoo. I said that Yahoo had been warped from the start by their fear of Microsoft. That was why they'd positioned themselves as a "media company" instead of a technology company. Then I looked at his face and realized that he didn't understand."
"Microsoft cast a shadow over the software world for almost 20 years starting in the late 80s. I can remember when it was IBM before them, I ignored this shadow. I never used Microsoft software, so it only affected me indirectly -- for example, in the spam I got from botnets. And because I wasn't paying attention, I didn't notice when the shadow disappeared."
The fact of the matter is -- that shadow has NOT disappeared. I use quotes from Simeon Bateman and Ryan Stewart from a post entitled, "Why Do People Hate Building Desktop Applications", by Ryan Stewart:
"Simeon: And I think paul is right on with the desktop thing. The only reason I would ever consider building an application for the desktop is because apollo lets me do it easily like a web application. "
"I would never NEVER build a desktop application."
"Ryan: At least Simeon realizes there is some benefit to building desktop applications, he just doesn't see why it's worth it to go through the effort. And he's right, building desktop applications has been hard. It's a pain: you have to create a version for each operating system, and most of them look ugly when you're finished."
Obviously, this is exactly the kind of discussion that Microsoft wants. This is wisdom -- not my kind -- but wisdom, nonetheless. The longer people see the business that way the more dominant that shadow.
As a builder of a desktop application that can make development of additional applications much easier, I am extremely sensitive to the spread of such baloney.
I must add a couple of quotes from, "Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing."
"Paul obviously wrote his headline to grab attention and attract links to his blog."
"Hyperbole is the weapon of the Web 2.0 pontificates, Facts are ignored in favor of Myopic observations."
"The Paul Graham apologists are already coming to his defense saying "he said dead, but what he really meant was that Microsoft is not feared anymore". Sorry to burst your bubble but it was never Microsoft's intent to scare anyone."
Yea, sure -- tell that to Jennifer Edstrom and Marlin Eller, the authors of "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates.", published in 1998.
That's enough -- I must assume that I have made my point.
Whether you agree or not, you will cherry pick all those postings for wisdom to support your preconceived position, just as I have done. That, in it's self, is the way things were meant to be -- we can talk about our individual viewpoints till hell freezes over.
The presence, or non-presence of a cloud will NOT change until we convert our collective viewpoint into some kind of political action.
The blogosphere was started as a reaction to the mainstream media and it's usurped control over the power of the people. The blogosphere is now part of that MSM. Nothing has changed for the majority of the people -- no sense my getting aroused -- I can't participate in the discussion, except by mailing a copy of this post to a number of well known gatekeepers.
I just happen to be dumb enough to still do a little wishful thinking.
Thanks for listening
Doug Skoglund
SandS Software, Inc.
skoglund@pdmsb.com
This page posted at http://nationalcomputerassociation.comwhere you can join a discussion aimed at creating a real answer to that cloud.
posted by Doug Skoglund at
2:14 PM
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