"Thanks to OS X, Apple has come back from the dead in a way that is extremely rare in technology. [2] Their victory is so complete that I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops. It was the same in the audience at startup school. All the computer people use Macs or Linux now. Windows is for grandmas, like Macs used to be in the 90s. So not only does the desktop no longer matter, no one who cares about computers uses Microsoft's anyway."
Maybe Microsoft is coming back from the dead the same way Apple did?
Also April 2007, 2 months before the first iPhone was released, PG couldn't have predicted the impact of the iPhone in the mobile world. The only mention of it is : "of course Apple has Microsoft on the run in music too, with TV and phones on the way."
But in the desktop world, Windows is still 90% of the operating system share[1] , (or at least 80% according to [2]) It's not surprising that every developer in the SV uses a MacBook: it's the best working tool for them. But if you look out in the rest of the world, people are not buying >$2000 laptops/desktops when they are perfectly fine with a Windows laptop to do their work&play.
>Maybe Microsoft is coming back from the dead the same way Apple did?
No, because Microsoft was never "dead" the same way Apple was.
Apple was unprofitable and on the brink of bankruptcy.
Microsoft had new competition, but was still making more money than Apple or Google during its "slump".
Apple recovered by appealing to the general public instead of a niche market. Remember what owning a Mac was like in the 90s? Microsoft is "recovering" by appealing to a niche market segment that they've spent most of their corporate history alienating: the open source hacker crowd, ie, people who read this site.
PG only thought MS was dead because, like Sauron in the Third Age, its shadow no longer darkened the world he saw. That doesn't mean that Sauron/MS's power was broken, just that it wasn't affecting the Hobbits/hackers in the Shire/Silicon Valley. Now Sauron is back and he wants to come smoke pipeweed and eat second breakfast, and everyone is very aware of how healthy and dapper he is these days.
When PG wrote that and I read it I was working in a Microsoft partner shop developing full-stack MS solutions for clients. In Wellington NZ at the time almost everyone of any significant size, from private to public sector, used MS exclusively (its a little different now, 'bout 50/50 with a lot of mixed solutions).
I couldn't tell where he was coming from - the only rationalisation seemed that he was talking exclusively about the startup scene in silicon valley. Case in point, we would have been surprised if we came across anyone using a machine running OS X, unless it was a personal toy they brought into work.
Maybe Microsoft is coming back from the dead the same way Apple did?
Also April 2007, 2 months before the first iPhone was released, PG couldn't have predicted the impact of the iPhone in the mobile world. The only mention of it is : "of course Apple has Microsoft on the run in music too, with TV and phones on the way."
But in the desktop world, Windows is still 90% of the operating system share[1] , (or at least 80% according to [2]) It's not surprising that every developer in the SV uses a MacBook: it's the best working tool for them. But if you look out in the rest of the world, people are not buying >$2000 laptops/desktops when they are perfectly fine with a Windows laptop to do their work&play.
[1] http://www.netmarketshare.com/ [2] http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp