“The rise of China combined with failing US education and tough visa systems means the US must surrender its superpower status and adopt a more multicultural worldview. That’s according to Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman, who said the US is failing to turn out sufficient numbers of computer science graduates or to attract enough talent from abroad to maintain its edge at a time when China is becoming ‘the pace-setter for a lot of things,'” Gavin Clarke reports for The Register.
Clarke reports, “Interviewed by veteran talk show host Charlie Rose, Gates made it clear that China’s rise does not mean the US loses out, but riches and wealth from innovation get spread around more. Grilled by Rose over Microsoft’s own spotty track record on innovation… [and] asked to rate other innovators and their innovations, Gates gave Apple Computer’s iPod two thumbs up. Fresh from launching Microsoft’s iPod rival Zune this week, Gates said the iPod was ‘phenomenal, unbelievable, fantastic’ – something the market had latched on to. Microsoft’s goal with Zune is ‘more modest’ than replacing the iPod, Gates said. ‘It’s a growing market… we can get some of the new users and some of the switchers. We need to excite people about the concept – the idea of sharing’ music and video through Zune’s built-in WiFi, he said.”
Full article here.
“There’s nothing that the iPod does that I say, ‘Oh, wow, I don’t think we can do that.'” – Bill Gates, September 07, 2004.
Related articles:
Bill Gates’ sarcasm regarding Apple iPod: ‘Oh, wow, I don’t think we can do that’ – September 07, 2004
Sounds like Bill’s running for President of China! That’s an untapped market.
Switchers?
Steal and run and is the death of the empire to be known.
I think he has reasonable expectations. That’s what his comment is telling me. It’s kudos to the iPod from his perspective and a realistic view on how the Zune might fare.
And you can say what you want about Microsoft, they’re trying – and competition is always good no matter what form it might take. While it may not be very effective competition right now, perhaps later on, it will mature. That will be great for Apple.
I love my 80 gig iPod. I travel extensively and record tv shows on my eyetv and port them to my iPod. It’s fantastic. I cannot believe I lived without it before.
But an effective competitor, which the Zune clearly isn’t at this point, will be good for all concerned.
I just don’t see the need for the constant negativity. Let’s see what happens over the next year or two… If nothing else it will be interesting…
As I said before, don’t be so quick to dismiss the Zune. Ars Technica just gave a GREAT review of the Zune, and it does have a much better & much prettier interface than the iPod. It also has a built-in FM Radio, which is crucial for people who want to listen to the closed-circuit televisions at the gym & tune into their favorite radio shows. The Zune kicks the iPod’s ass on many different levels, except of course for SIZE & COLOR & the fact that it’s made by one of the crappiest companies in the world.
MacBill you must have a zune. Let’s hear all about it. Kicks Ass!!! LOL. SIZE, COLOR. LOL. Gym? Get real!!! JUMP.
Oh by the way, did I mention I’m buying Apple Computer?
Compare the Zune to the very first iPod released before you chuck stones.
Yea fm radio can be added to the ipod which is better. Not everyone wants an fm radio. Its out of style satellite radio is taking over and is so much better then fm ever thought of being. Its completly digital and mostly commercial free. after having my sirius for about a month i never wanted to go back to FM again.
The zune is funny yea im going to haul arround a brick like the zune and tune into something at the gym. No thinaks ill take a nano with an fm adapter if i wanted that. Its much smaller.
Interface the ipod is hands down the winner. Its amazing that most other people think the same thing.
If the ipod was made by microsoft and worked identical in everyway all you MS fans would kill to get one. But you cant stand that a better company can make a better product. They always have. MS has never EVER made anything. They bought DOS, Copied the MAC, came out with an MP3 player long after the ipod was the #1 ruler and they cant even make it they have to borrow one already made, MS just doesnt know how to do things they have stolen and bought thier way to where they are they just dont know how to really do something for real.
I hate this whole ms is better because thier are bigger thing and apple sucks becuase people have some stupid idea they are only meant for geeks and video/photo people. They would rather spends thousands of dollars on virus/malware protection and rebooting and tech shooting thier hardware crap and software crap made by MS they are blinded by the easyness and simplicty of apple.
That’s my man Charlie Rose… Grilling Gates on MSFT’s lack of innovations… Rose is still the best interviewer on TV.
the first ipod was better then the zune is still. the ipod was supperior to everything else out there at the time and stil is. there is no comparison between an ipod and a zune (any generation ipod that is).
the wifi on the ZUNE will be worthless. Lets say 10,000 zunes are sold over the next few months. ok if all those are divded equally among 50 states thats 200 people per state and even if you figure those people are only in 2 major cities per state thats 100 people per city. average city say 150,000 ok im going to find my other zune buddies who dont know me but are going to let me wifi them in this city of 150,000 people i am going to find even 1 is unlikley and then on top of that find one who wants to wifi with me even though he has never met me and could care less about my music tastes.
THE FM radio well i can add that to an iPod if i so desired but i dont think i will. I have no use for FM Radio on my MP3 PLayer. Most of those mp3 player with built in fm are not all they are cracked up to be. static and lousy reception are among a few i can think of.
Zune has a neat interface with the picture background but to me the ipod is simple it just works it does what i want it to and plays my music. i dont have to fiddle with it. the one touch click wheel an simply designed interface may not be the best wow factor interface but it works and it works great. simplicity is what draws people to the ipod/ itunes interface and is why others cant catch a break ever. including zune. plays for sure didnt do much so i cant see how zune is going to do any better. I expect best buys san disk combo to do better then zune but it still will never compete with the ipod.
The very first iPod didn’t have anything to copy.
Compare the Zune to the very first iPod released before you chuck stones.
—
Huh? this things been in development for a while, and has a roadmap of exactly what to do… (eg. copy Apple)… it has the advantage of being last to the market.
Furthermore, the cost of chips has come down incredibly over those 5 years.. the ONLY thing that MS should be getting wrong is.. competing with Apple’s AAC+ format.
But, it can still copy iTunes if it wants.
The things that Zune got wrong have nothing to do with ‘Apple’s 5 yrs head start’
What can brown do for you?
> The very first iPod didn’t have anything to copy.
VERY good point, that one! (One that I’ve been aware of for a l-o-n-g time in relation to music and art.) It’s MUCH easier to copy and adapt something than it is to invent from a blank slate.
” It also has a built-in FM Radio, which is crucial for people who want to listen to the closed-circuit televisions at the gym & tune into their favorite radio shows.”
The Zune is way too big to use while you’re working out. Better to have a Nano and the FM accessory.
“… US must surrender its superpower status and adopt a more multicultural worldview.”
What a load. The problem is, Bill is just so used to aiding the Chinese steal tech/military info through mile wide holes in Windows that he just can’t stop giving.
Tony… “Compare the Zune to the very first iPod released before you chuck stones.”
Well, I don’t have the *very* first one, but I have the second one in my hand at this moment. Compared to my 8gb black Nano. it looks like a BEAST. But compared to a zune… it’s quite sleek. Sure the old B&W screen can’t compete, but it STILL HAD A SCROLL WHEEL… and to me it’s all about the scroll (now the click) wheel.
I think about this every time I scroll down to a name in the U’s on my frikkin crap ass phone. I have to click down every time, or hold the button and hope it doesn’t coast by. NO tactile feedback like an iPod.
My god… I can’t WAIT to scroll through phone numbers like that.
Anyway… MS might have made a decent player if they’d taken the (fairly nice) interface and made some decent hardware to put it in.
Maybe Apple could do it for them.
-c
MW: ‘view’ (to a kill)
The first iPod decimated the competition. There were others, and the whole point was to compare it to what the market was already offering. Since then, the iPod is still decimating the competition.
Apple’s initial goal was simply to catch that higher end digital music market and make it theirs. It happened so rapidly that they were quickly moving down the price scale and gobbling everyone up.
What’s the Microsoft goal for the Zune, to take over the anti-ipod crowd? Or to make things slightly easier for the xbox 360 crowd? There’s got to be some goal here, and it’s not to unseat the iPod.
Bill has got this view because Microsoft can’t attract genius anymore.
All the home-grown talent is working for others like Apple and Google.
And it shows…
I think the goal, as outlined in the RDM article is simple – to unload all those failed WinCE boxes that all MS’s partners realized they would NEVER sell. And they all had WiFi, so MS had to figure out something to do with the WiFi, because they were stuck with it. So they got their best ideas people together, and they came up with some fantastically useful ideas. But those ideas didn’t make it, because MS had no clout with the music industry.
They would have to sign any shitty deal they were offered, so they did.
And in the process, all those good ideas were swept away, to be replaced by a feature litigated to the point of uselessness, that not even some *desperately* clever marketing could salvage.
That’s okay, appeal to the outcasts… maybe we can get the freaks.
Well… you don’t really know what the freaks think of you, do you MS? They might like the XBox, but they like it for the games they play, not the wonderful engineering or the fact that it makes them ‘individual’.
There is absolutely no reason to own a Zune over an iPod.
Let’s set the ‘social’ fantasy aside for a second… but as a piece of electronic equipment, that I use every day, for my own purposes…
There is not ONE. Reason.
This is where the quick-and-dirty box-assembler-OS-licensee model gets us.
All the good ideas will come from the software, NOT the part that people actually touch. And hardware makers are hamstrung buy their good ideas ineptly executed, of not poorly supported.
Zuned. And Delled.
But I think the market is waking up.
People want to get these ugly boxes out of their way, not make them uglier.
Zune is a complete fiasco, from end to end.
-c
MW: ‘front’ (me a dime)
I think Apple can be summed up by a very simple idea:
If it can’t be really good, don’t do it.
-c
MW: ‘answer’ (your phone, and think of how you’ll be getting rid of it soon)
The thing about sharing music and video on my portable player is that by and large I’m selfish. I can’t be bothered to share my content with other people – I just want to receive stuff for myself. If you could stream iTunes libraries from surrounding networks to your iPod with reasonable battery performance I would find that useful. I could browse and listen to content, maybe find something I liked, add it to an on-the-go playlist then when I get back to iTunes, buy it from the store.
I can only see apple being able to excite people about wifi since they have the infrastructure of portable devices and libraries already out there to provide reasonable content. They could surely also join up with wifi hotspot providers to sell music via them in some fashion. Bonjour and iTunes sharing will be the thing to make this feature useful – not Microsoft and their vision of people squirting to each other. I don’t want to have to wait for someone to send me something – I just want to take it.
Werd.
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1948246,00.html
Nice article about the zune. Love the remarks at the end.
Cheers
Zune over….
(get it?)
MacB…
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“The very first iPod had nothing to copy”
Except my entire CD collection!
Duh?!?!
I’m waiting for Ballmer to say something positive about iPods. Gates will sometimes say something sensible, but Ballmer is quite different.
The thing that I would find most alarming about having a Zune, is that Ballmer talks about how he could squirt pictures of his kids onto other people’s Zunes. At least with an iPod you can be reasonably safe from Ballmer doing that to you.
Just out of interest, has Microsoft ever said how many Zunes they hope to sell this quarter ? Might it be as many as one million ?
That’s how many iPods Apple is expecting to sell between today ( Thursday ) and next Monday, with the same for each and every five days during this coming quarter.
Switchers?
Does he steal everything from the Apple side?
Looking forward to see what Apple does with the iPod line now that Zune is out, MS has deep deep pockets lets not forget, but Apple nowadays has some coin to spare too, and can be totally ingenious (not that MS cannot, only much rare-er), so … FIGHT!!
All I see is eleven to seventeen year old girls walking around or sitting on buses and subways sharing their music experience by sharing their iPod headphones. It may not be great sound quality – but its not about that, Squirting a song via wifi is not sharing the experience – its like exchanging business cards. billy and balmey don’t have a clue. Steve does!
Bill’s quote: “… we can get some of the new users and some of the switchers.”
How can M$ get some of the switchers? PC’s are what people are switiching FROM not TO!
Doubt they’re buying a Mac then a Zune.
I think he means switchers from iPods to Zune because they have had a bad experience with cracked whatever’s and batteries and other shit and because they are tools.
Lots of them out there and they are not all in the garage!
Microsoft currently suffers from unreasonable expectations.
Microsoft has risen to the top of the PC world and the expectation is that they should have the ability to do the same in every other industry. Unfortunately that has not been the case.
As a result, thier stock is flat (no stock option bonuses for anyone!) and they continue to struggle.
It is much easier to get to the top than to stay there.
Sharing music means that you and I are listening to the same song at the same time, so we have a shared experience. That’s why the earbud sharing and the iPod speaker docks. Squirting it to you for you to listen to later (or at least not at exactly the same time) is not the same. Streaming is more appropriate.
As for the pretty Zune interface, adding a background picture is a fairly simple thing and I’m glad the Zune took a step forward here. If Apple didn’t do it because Steve didn’t want to mess up the clean iPod interface, then hopefully the reviews may convince him. That’s why competition is good. The Zune has a handful of good ideas but overall, it is really poorly implemented especially given that MS took a year to develop it (Xbox guys started work on it last Nov). Note that Apple created the first iPod and the first iPod mini in less than a year.
Mr. Gates one day will be an advisor in the Apple Co. board … Steve’s goal.
I’m with Chrissyone,
‘Weird’
Mark, excellent point.
Imagine having an iPod that allows others to hear what you are listening to? Along with a streaming audio, it could send a small data file of your photo, email address, personal info, and anything else you would want them to know about you.
This could be used for “hookin’ up” with others or for advertising local events, plays, concerts, etc.
My guess is that in 6 months, iPods will be using 802.11g for streaming unlimited audio and video (who needs an FM radio when you have a college campus with 1,000 streaming connections?), and downloading iPod content to/from your computer.. and STILL be 25% smaller than a Zune.
Anyone with a computer or iPod could have their own local radio and TV station.
Compare the Zune to the very first iPod released before you chuck stones.
————————————————————-
The Zune is not competing against the first iPod released.
It’s competing against a five year old, mature and very popular product.
Ahhh.. Yess.. This is why I keep coming back to MDN.
To get my daily dose of hatred and bile from Macheads towards everything non-Apple.
It keeps my energy level up and my hatred of all Mac users going…
This is personal, assh*les – and it ain’t going away. I’d punch any of you in the face if I met you on the street.
And there are many more like me – and our number are growing.
No rest until Apple is dead!
I don’t think you’d actually punch anyone for their choice of personal computer or consumer electronic. And even if you were that unbalanced, I seriously doubt that crazies like you are really growing in numbers as to cause any of the general public an ounce anxiety.
Just got my Zune..My 3rd Gen iPod is now a paper weight.
MacBill
As I said before, don’t be so quick to dismiss the Zune. Ars Technica just gave a GREAT review of the Zune
When so much attention is spent on gorgeous packaging, but the player locks up in less than 10 seconds of use, it raises questions. To unseat a player like the iPod and to convince users to ditch any PlaysforSure tracks they might own, Microsoft needed to hit a home run on launch day. At best, they knocked a long double off the wall. That’s pretty good, but not when you’re down by six in the eighth inning.
That’s what you call a great review Macbill? Locking up in 10 seconds?
The devil, as always, is a very smart man.
Whatever you think of his products (mainly I’ve just always felt they were built for large organizations which meant choice not right for smaller businesses and individuals) never underestimate him.
I can’t wait for him to go off and be 100% focused on Africa. Ballmer is no Gates.
(That said, I must admit that Ballmer is there because Gates thinks he should be, and I should never underestimate BillyG.
Why does anybody listen to this guy anyway? He is always quoting about innovations that have already come to pass…and he has missed obviously!
Does anyone remember the “AlphaOS”
They bought NT also, nothing is innovative from M$!
Yeah, good luck with the sharing idea. My two sons both have PSP and DS. I only saw them using the WiFi feature a couple of times and between themselves.
“I love it” you missed your medication today mate…. besides the fact that you are in complete denial you are also pikcing the wrong oponent! Don’t blame us for your sad youth and the time that sweaty uncle that touched you when you were even younger. And let me tell you this boy: you aint going to hit no one, not in this live in this universe.
So next time you pass by, behave and give some feedback with brains. (and medication)
MacB, Netherlands.
YAY! Punch me. So I can beat your pansy ass all over town.
Bring it on, girlie.
Watch it.
Advice from Bill Gates about present implications on the future? Didn’t he write a book about the future of computing and have to re-release it with an added chapter about teh internets?
At least Gates’ being honest and not pretentious. Can you all give the dude a break even when he says something GOOD about Apple?
(In fact, I recall the M$ folks saying the Zune had a more modest goal before the thing was even released. It just seems no one wants to recall that and write it off as an immediate failure – which it may soon be, but not yet.)
Gates could’ve gone on to gloat that XBox 360 is now in the black on each system sold…. but he didn’t, so good for him.
No one has challenged the basic premise of the article: “The rise of China combined with failing US education. . . .”
No one has said a word. Is the collapse of education in the United States so obvious now that it’s a given?
Can anyone in the United States read this post? CQ . . . CQ . . . is anyone there? Anyone?