chuck

there's no comment link for your cliff notes (http://www.paulgraham.com/cliffsnotes.html) followup so i will comment here.

you seem to be back-pedaling with this cliff-notes post. so you are going to be the first to "call it"... call what exactly? that seems to be your cliff notes discussion... it required several paragraphs to define what you mean. nobody is going to remember what you exactly called.

you say the following... "When I said that Microsoft was dead, I meant they had, like IBM before them, passed across into this underworld."

so you are basically saying now that ibm is dead... in which you define it as "people at the leading edge of the software business no longer have to think about them."

i guess many would disagree with you on what "leading edge" or relevance in software is about. if you think these web2.0 companies, then perhaps, then many will disagree with you whether there's much new tech coming out of these web 2.0 companies.

Seems way to early to declare them dead. Have you never watched a basketball game where momentum shifts and the dominant team is on the ropes, but it's only halftime. There's plenty of time to come storming back. In other words, the game isn't over. It's way too early to call them dead.

Based on your assumptions, if they are indeed dead or headed inexorably in that direction, then why aren't we all using thin clients connected to superfast pipes running ajaxified code? Perhaps, it doesn't always work that well?

I guess all these web2.0 companies, y-combinator included, didn't use powerpoint for their deck? Or the execs don't run windows mobile 5.0 on their smartphone?

You make a lot of valid points but you omit a lot in the analysis and you get kinda religous about it all.

When a team declares victory just by taking the lead... you know that team is scared.