Paul Graham sure knows how to stir things up. Proclaim the death (or irrelevance, take your pick) of Microsoft and that startups should not fear Microsoft's 100 pounds. Go forth and multiply, he nudges. Don Dodge of Microsoft says not so fast. Not only is Microsoft doing well now, it's well positioned for the future.
Ah, what a way to start a Monday morning.
Here's what I see. Of course, Microsoft isn't going away anytime soon. Actually, I don't think Paul is really arguing this--even if his words are. The issue I think Paul is trying to get at is: for those college friends drunk with entrepreneurial enthusiasm, what coattails are they going to launch their businesses from? Microsoft's? Google's? Web 2.0's? That's more of what Paul is trying to get at.
Don's response today kind of says it all. He argues that software as a service is where it's at, and that the consumer transition to it has already taken place and that now the real money is on the enterprise side and who else is there to take this on except Microsoft. His rationale continues: enterprise solutions are more complex than consumer-side ones, the issues are more intricate and expensive, there are more integration issues, and that Microsoft has the know how to solve this. Just you wait.
If I were to bet on this, I'd probably watch Microsoft closely. Either way, there's surely to be lots of money made by companies large and small providing enterprise grade solutions for companies eager to replace and wrap around their current systems. I'm not so sure Don's outline of a data center is where the "next big dorm-room-built thing" is going to come from, however. I imagine the dorm-room inspired thinking is more likely to come up with an end-around solution that'll challenge conventional spreadsheets....until someone sees it working and adds up the numbers. Then they'll go with the cheaper, more useable solution. Will that be derived from Microsoft's enterprise-grade solution or something else? Paul appears to want to look elsewhere.
Here's the thing: as an engineer the more someone tells me that something is impossible, too expensive, too complicated, the more I'll try to think up a less expensive, less complicated, and feasible solution. Lots of others do too.
Whatever the competing solution might be, might the CTO of a Fortune 5000 company sign off on it? Don's implication is correct, probably not for the enterprise. However, what Don's technology integration outline seems to miss is that even in large companies there are lots of smaller-acting entities. Lots of them. This is where Paul's community of readers may make their next big thing big. Microsoft can tackle the problem from the top-down. This makes sense. They have the established relationships. The startups, though, will nibble from the other side, starting by providing solutions from individuals working in disparate locations, for decentralized workgroups, for divisions looking to divide and downsize, and so on. See where things are going?
One thing that's on Microsoft's side, though, besides having the resources to provide enterprise-grade services, is that Microsoft has the distinct advantage of understanding and consistently providing solid platform tools. Yeah, they've done better here on the desktop side. For instance, Microsoft would have done better had it provided more developer tools earlier on that would have helped to commoditize many of the "next-big-thing competitors" it now faces online. Eight-plus years ago, a Postnuke-like platform would have been a good idea. Five years ago, blogging components would have been smart. Today a social-minded content aggregating system makes sense.
All of this being said, I'm expecting Microsoft--alive or not--will continue to catch up on the "web" side in terms of providing developer platform solutions. The sold-out Mix 07 conference to be held at the end of this month may give a peak into what's coming up next--or maybe nuggets that people can walk away with. If anybody cares, I vote for the latter, but I'll understand if I have to wait....a bit.


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