4 ms·

"INTERVIEWER:: Where do you see Microsoft in ten years? GATES: Our goals are very simple. We’re going to create the software that puts a computer on every desk

by Cynddl 13y ago

"INTERVIEWER:: Where do you see Microsoft in ten years? GATES: Our goals are very simple. We’re going to create the software that puts a computer on every desk and in every home. I don’t know if that’ll take ten years–that’s not my expertise, guessing those exact time frames. Microsoft also wants to participate in helping to make sure those machines are good machines, building the system software into them, and then doing a lot of the important applications they’ll use."

code_duck 13y ago
This leads into a section that I find interesting, where he envisions every useful application on computers having to do with CD-ROMs and their vast storage space. He doesn't mention anything at all about networking, which is a very true to the story of how the last 10 years of his tenure as a chief at Microsoft turned out. Microsoft succeeded in what he stated, creating software for computers that almost every home used, indeed with software on CD-ROM. However, the applications he envisioned - catalogs, phone books, maps - actually turned out run on the Internet, not local storage. The attempts to distribute things like catalogs on CD-ROM turned out to be cumbersome and expensive, and too difficult to keep updated. He mentions the vast storage space of CDs, but the effective storage space of a computer connected to the Internet dwarfs the capabilities of any local storage.
- dmethvin 13y ago
  > He doesn't mention anything at all about networking ... It was a blind spot for Gates and Microsoft in the 1980s. He wasn't alone, of course. People like Marshall McCluhan had laid out a vision for it years before but Gates was really focused on software for devices and not the network. It wasn't until the late 1980s that Microsoft turned its attention to Novell which was making a killing in PC networking. (Gates recruited Jim Allchin from network company Banyan in 1990.) By the mid-1990s there wasn't much left of Novell, but Microsoft's interest and strategy there was purely driven by business and not vision. That was clear when they were clobbered again by the Internet.

by Cynddl 13y ago

code_duck 13y ago

This leads into a section that I find interesting, where he envisions every useful application on computers having to do with CD-ROMs and their vast storage space. He doesn't mention anything at all about networking, which is a very true to the story of how the last 10 years of his tenure as a chief at Microsoft turned out. Microsoft succeeded in what he stated, creating software for computers that almost every home used, indeed with software on CD-ROM. However, the applications he envisioned - catalogs, phone books, maps - actually turned out run on the Internet, not local storage. The attempts to distribute things like catalogs on CD-ROM turned out to be cumbersome and expensive, and too difficult to keep updated. He mentions the vast storage space of CDs, but the effective storage space of a computer connected to the Internet dwarfs the capabilities of any local storage.

dmethvin 13y ago
> He doesn't mention anything at all about networking ... It was a blind spot for Gates and Microsoft in the 1980s. He wasn't alone, of course. People like Marshall McCluhan had laid out a vision for it years before but Gates was really focused on software for devices and not the network. It wasn't until the late 1980s that Microsoft turned its attention to Novell which was making a killing in PC networking. (Gates recruited Jim Allchin from network company Banyan in 1990.) By the mid-1990s there wasn't much left of Novell, but Microsoft's interest and strategy there was purely driven by business and not vision. That was clear when they were clobbered again by the Internet.