I would argue that was more a mistake of Ballmer than Gates. Sure Gates was still involved with Microsoft but it was Ballmer who ran things day-to-day when the

I would argue that was more a mistake of Ballmer than Gates. Sure Gates was still involved with Microsoft but it was Ballmer who ran things day-to-day when the iPhone and Android hit the scenes but he was too blinded by Windows prior success and losing out to Apple with the iPad vs. Zune to see that Android and not Apple was the bigger threat. Sure Ballmer made those silly comments that the iPhone wouldn't sell (in part he was right, they quickly dropped the price) but he was a fool for trying to stick with Windows on a phone. There had been Windows Mobile devices for many years before the iPhone and they all sucked. Trying to evolve that platform was idiotic. It was the perfect chance for Microsoft to start from scratch with a new platform but nope they decided to cut and slice away at Windows until it ran on a mobile ARM SoC and it was overall pretty shitty. They tried to put lipstick on the pig with Live Tiles and such but at the end of the day it still had all the awful decades old junk that comes with Windows. I guess another way of phrasing Mr. Gates comment would be "My biggest regret is not giving Steve a kick in the ass to do something new rather than try and shoe horn Windows into a phone"?