Microsoft is Dead

Interesting article. Doesn't it usually happen that once you get big someone comes along and eventually takes your place? It was a matter of time.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in games.  Many webapps are catching up quickly to their desktop counterparts, but there are some big technical hurdles with games.

It's funny that Google has replaced Microsoft as the evil empire, I've been seeing that a lot recently.  My friends who work there are in denial.

Uisce, what's your take on Silverlight, Apollo, JavaFX, etc.?

I'm not following the RIA(rich internet apps) space much either.  I got together with some folks I used to work with 10 years ago recently and they were really jazzed about the UI possibilities now.

I did a lot of AJAX work a year ago, but recently I'm doing stuff for mobile phones, so I've gone backwards in the complexity of user experiences I'm dealing with.

Wow - hope ya'll didn't drink this guys kool-aid.  He's a bit too narrow-minded.

The 'desktop' is dead?  Uh... no.  It should be, but the open-source community is not as smart or efficient as we think (and hoped).  And I'm not just talking your traditional desktops either - mobile devices too.  Windows Mobile is selling like wild on both PDAs and smartphones.  The developer community for the Windows family of OSes is very much alive and smashing all others.

Sure, Google has a better business model and will take a lot from Microsoft and others; but that does not mean the death of Microsoft.

And I'm not particularly a Microsoft fan or defender either - I'm a Unix bigot at heart and would welcome real change.  But when I was looking to trade in my old Palm smartphone for something new, Windows Mobile was the only thing that satisfied my requirements - no open-source or Google solution was in play.

Open source missed the directory services window (I was in talks with Nick Petreley years ago when he was at Infoworld about this and he ended up writing some of the things I shared in his articles on this window of opportunity - the community still missed the mark), and is missing the mobile device battle to a great extent.  ...The 'desktop' isn't dead.

Oh - and Microsoft has been making real inquiries into acquiring Yahoo.  This would really turn my stomach - but you cannot deny the services and users it would supply them.  Dead they is not.

Is the desktop dead?  I know mine is buried beneath layers of paperwork, CDs, DVDs, old cables and crap. I'd say mine is dead and decayed.

Certainly an interesting article.  I wouldn't say Microsoft is dead, but they do seem to have lost some power.  IMO, they over-hyped vi$ta.  Though it is a good OS (micro$oftly speaking), it took them much to long in getting it out once they started talking about it.  It's also too expensive, takes up too much disk space, and eats a lot of resources.  Should have fine-tuned it more and talked about it less.  And Office 2007 is just as spendy - actually, more so ($340 on sale for the pro?!? I don't think so.)  I also think Microsoft will be around and fairly dominant until programs for other OSs can be more widely found.