[saturdaysaint]

How are they still relevant exactly? They're doing some interesting things, but I know dozens of people that rarely if ever touch an MS operating system every day, unthinkable a decade ago, and they're missing out on nothing. I can't think of a must use piece of software that launched on an MS platform (outside Xbox) in the last 5 years. That puts them pretty low on the relevance totem pole.

[tanzam75]

> They're doing some interesting things, but I know dozens of people that rarely if ever touch an MS operating system every day, unthinkable a decade ago, and they're missing out on nothing.

I knew plenty of Mac users in 2004. They didn't feel like they were missing out on anything back then.

The recent past does not represent the normal state of affairs. Microsoft was not going to retain a monopoly forever, any more than IBM could've retained a monopoly. Yet IBM is larger today than it ever was as a monopoly.

Markets grow, and new markets open up. Microsoft doesn't need a monopoly in every market. What it needs is something that it doesn't yet have in the various consumer markets -- 20-30% share. Large enough to matter.

[tshile]

Your comment is the exact same as PG's - because you don't see it with your own two eyes it must not exist.

There are millions of people that are working off of microsoft exchange servers, using websites hosted by microsoft IIS, involved in environments managed using active directory, work collaboratively with others using sharepoint (there's lots of job opportunities as a shairpoint dev, by the way), .NET developers, people working with Azure and Office 365, use SQL server databases, using microsoft office products, having their traffic pass through UAG systems, and so and so on. In addition they're one of the leading tech companies when it comes to helping fight spam and cyber crime activity (when I say one of the leading tech companies I mean one of the leading tech companies that's mission statement isn't to mainly fight spam and cyber crime.)

Hyper-v, file shares, remote desktop gateway and services, the list of services microsoft has its hands in is very, very long. Microsoft does a whole hell of a lot more than just produce an office suite and an operating system.

Just because you're personally surrounded by linux and mac users doesn't mean microsoft is irrelevant. It just means your scope on the world is narrow enough that it's out of your personal bubble.

There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you recognize it for what it is - your own little world that is not a perfect representation of the real world.

If the premise is that Microsoft no longer has a death grip on the technology sector, with the ability to throw its weight in whatever direction it pleases whenever it pleases, then I would agree with that.

Dead? Not even close.

(But they may be dead in the not too distant future. i do not have a crystal ball. but right now they're hardly dead, 7 years after PG's essay.)