Paul Graham argues that
Microsoft is Dead. Huh? It's such a silly claim that normally I wouldn't even bother reading. But
Andrew Kantor says the guy isn't really a fool, so should be taken seriously. Graham claims four things have brought Microsoft, one of the biggest companies in the world, to its grave: Google, traditional desktop applications being implemented as web applications (
e.g. Google's spreadsheets), broadband, and Mac OS X. The first three are very much inter-related: it's Google's web applications like spreadsheets, which require broadband connections to download all the javascript to make the things work, that Graham claims are the silver bullets to Microsoft. OS X is the last nail because Graham also claims he doesn't know anyone who even uses Windows anymore.
To respond to the web applications argument, I simply ask if Graham has actually used Google's spreadsheet application? It works. It's good for the average Joe at home wanting to have a simple spreadsheet to keep track of some things. But it far from capable of challenging Excel or Open Office's spreadsheet. Basically, you can write web applications that do a lot of useful things, but I'm not convinced you can write an application in a scripting language that has anywhere near the power of a desktop application.
As to Mac OS X, what's that have to do with anything? It's been around for several years now, and there has not exactly been a mass migration away from Windows because of it. So to portray this nearly obsolete operating system (the next Mac OS is coming soon) as the doom of Microsoft is plain silly. I like Macs. Mac operating systems were for years far ahead of Windows. I remember using early Macs in college in the late 80's and then using my mom's PC running Windows 3.1 in the 90's and thinking what a joke it was. But years of superiority didn't spell years of dominance, and OS X never changed that.
Every time a new technology comes out, someone says it's the end of Microsoft. When java first emerged in the mid-90's, the idea of writing applications as applets that ran in the browser and had no concern for operating system meant the end of Microsoft. 10+ years later, little has changed.
Now I like javascript. It's a great technology, particularly when used in a context like XUL (the technology firefox is written in, which has an engine that interprets XML and javascript to build your application; all the extensions you can get for firefox are written in javascript). You can build some good applications with it. But it will not kill the desktop.
Graham uses the example of Google's Gmail as an example of what javascript can do for you, and how it spells the end. I don't really understand that one. The interface seems kind of primitive. Yahoo's web mail interface uses a lot of AJAX and javascript to create a very desktop-ish UI, complete with drag-n-drop, tabs, shortcuts, etc. But would you rather use that interface, along with resource drain that comes from running all that script, or Thunderbird?
One thing I've learned since I've been in the business world: business drives technology, not personal users. I used to think Linux would take over the world. It's a free, or dirt cheap, operating system. For office applications, run Open Office. It would be far cheaper than outfitting thousands of desktop PCs with Windows and MS Office. But you know what? Businesses have invested vast amounts of money building up a library of Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, and even Access databases. After all this time, there's really little value to those businesses to now migrate all of that to something like Open Office, even if everything could be moved very simply. So those businesses, particularly the larger ones, will continue to use Windows and MS Office, and therefore Microsoft will still rule the desktop domain. It's that simple.
In a follow-up
posting, Graham clarifies that he meant Microsoft would cease to be relevant. This seems rather silly. Even with AJAX-based web pages, what browser do sites optimize for? Internet Explorer. Server side technology has been slowly moving toward web services for a while. What finally pushed that technology over the hump to get developers really using it? .NET.
The simple truth is that Microsoft still drives the desktop. Even competitors design their software to look like Microsoft products. The Linux desktops look an awful lot like the Windows desktop, for example. AJAX enabled mail interfaces on websites try to have an Outlook-ish look and feel. It goes on and on.
Oh, speaking of influence, who came up with many of the key components that comprise AJAX, the technology that supposedly renders Microsoft moot? According to Graham's own posting, Microsoft. In fact, the
history of AJAX is full of references to Microsoft. So much for no influence.
