4 ms·

The Future of Computing (1993): http://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/gates.htm#tc62 http://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/gates.htm#tc62

• lucasverra 10y ago
  Spot on. "We haven't changed the way people educate themselves, or socialize, or express their political opinions, in nearly the way that we will over the next ten years. And so the software is going to have to lead the way and provide the kind of ease of use, security, and richness that those applications demand." State that 20 yrs later we are at the beginning for a lucky minority of earth population, but non-the-less right on target !
• jypepin 10y ago
  2 years ago I went to the SF book fair which sells used books for $1-5 or something. I went in the CS section looking for some old CS/Data structure books, mostly for fun reading and stumbled upon Gates' "The Road Ahead" book [1]. It's from 1995, and he talks about how internet will become etc etc. It is mind blowing how spot on he is right on his vision, perfectly describing the iphone and other things we use today and didn't exist at this time. Sometime I wonder how Microsoft became so wrong on so many things despite such a clear vision of what the future became. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Ahead_(Bill_Gates_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Ahead_(Bill_Gates_boo...
  • scj 10y ago
    I'd recommend http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/category/chapters/chapter-2/ http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/category/chapters/chap... As far as the internet goes, it makes the case that Bill Gates saw the future, but not the immediate one. This left ground for Netscape to enter and momentarily control the Web. I'd rather use Bill Gates' own words from D5 in 2007: "And [Steve Job's] ability to always come around and figure out where that next bet should be has been phenomenal."
  • ridruejo 10y ago
    Which edition? They rewrote some chapters to remove references to multimedia CDs, interactive TV, etc and replace with references to the Internet once it was clear it was taking off...
  • raywu 10y ago
    It took years before multimedia took off—even though Bill Gates started pushing for it when Microsoft went public in 1986 (first CD-ROM Conference): > we were pushing the idea of multimedia back in 1986 that didn't really catch on, you could say, until 1994 so before it was in the mainstream. According to Randall E. Stross, not everyone saw CD-ROM's rise as a medium either: https://books.google.com/books?id=jrKwMK3raXoC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=microsoft+cd+rom+conference&source=bl&ots=BxeKzRdm6O&sig=qWPVw6GWZvcPpj8Wflv7y3O9NCs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7qO_1kePOAhVHymMKHQswAcYQ6AEILjAH#v=onepage&q=microsoft%20cd%20rom%20conference&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=jrKwMK3raXoC&pg=PA71&lpg=P... According to Stross above, even though Mac was technically advance, Sculley & Apple (Jobs left in 85'), missed out on the CD-ROM evolution as a trojan horse into the Home market (so did Manzi & Lotus). Microsoft (Robert Glaser) worked with PC, chips, and manufactures and faced many hurdles. I guess the breakthrough came when 486 came out. As a teenager the mid-nineties, I remember how CD-ROM was this huge leap from floppy disks & cassettes—that's almost 8+ years after the first CD-ROM Conference. Right when CD-ROM is in full swing (1994), another medium was taking shape. The pace of format evolution picked up after that; from CD-ROM & multimedia to the Internet & multimedia—was something that definitely left Microsoft in the wake and gave rise to a sleuth of other powerhouse. Looking back now, how Steve Jobs bet on MP3 and the Internet as another trojan horse into the Home market (for hand-held devices) makes everything comes full circle—took a page from Microsoft—no wonder why Gates was impressed. * EDIT: grammatical & add commentary on 486