Replies

This article was terribly juvenile and unprofessional. No, MS isn't dying.

Besides having marketshare, which is a force unto itself, MS is the only way for existing companies to have backwards compatibility with all of those software programs that they've been writing for their desktops since the mid 1980's.

Companies don't just abandon such investments in that level of software development.

MS also has a "farm team." MS developer tools are so easy to use that high school kids and college entrants have long been "playing" with MS tools. This creates a subset of people who are pre-disposed to use MS tools in the future, establishing yet another driving force for the Market.

And then there is cost. Techies don't like to think about real business costs. To most techies, "cost" is what a developer's software tools retail for.

On the other hand, most *businesses* are run by people who know that paying $80 grand per year to a programmer is a far larger cost than paying $1,000 to purchase a software tool. So if that software tool makes their programmer more efficient than 3 programmers who don't have that tool, then who is running the more efficient business: the company that hires 3 programmers and requires them to use "free" software tools, or the firm that hires 1 programmer and pays the $1,000 for the software tool?!

So there is your *real* cost, a fact known by all but the most myopic techies (who will still rant idiotically about the price of software tools).

This is merely another "My Kung Fu Is Better Than Yours" thread, or MKFIBTY for short.

On the other hand, most *businesses* are run by people who know that paying $80 grand per year to a programmer is a far larger cost than paying $1,000 to purchase a software tool. So if that software tool makes their programmer more efficient than 3 programmers who don't have that tool, then who is running the more efficient business: the company that hires 3 programmers and requires them to use "free" software tools, or the firm that hires 1 programmer and pays the $1,000 for the software tool?!

I've been working in the software industry for 25 years, for a large company that you would think might consider the facts as you state. They don't.

In the past, I've seen programmers use prehistoric line editors to enter and edit source code, for want of a few bucks to buy a decent programmers' editor or IDE. The manager had no idea how much it cost to keep his programmers hobbled by this technology.

For many years, and even now, 1st level managers refuse to buy CASE or CM tools for their charges, astonishingly letting them try to deal with the immense complexity of software designs and development issues by using the back of an envelope.

In my IT department, apparently I've become known as the "tool man" by my frequent badgering of management to acquire and employ power tools to improve the productivity and quality of code production by staff programmers. I've had some success, and apparently have earned a dismissive nickname for my efforts. Clearly, this company's management doesn't have a clue.