BusinessWeek has published a “Newsmaker Q&A” with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. One of the questions touched on Apple’s iPhone:
BusinessWeek: Steve Jobs’s most recent performance was with the iPhone, a big rollout. Would you buy an iPhone at $499 or $599?
Gates: Well, of course, I’m the wrong person to ask. I like to dial numbers with one hand, and maybe I’m the only one.
BusinessWeek: I know you could afford the price, but do you think it’s a little steep?
Gates: Well, the marketplace will do a good job of judging that, and they can always change the price. The phone space is one where we have been focusing. It’s one of those places where we think software will be the critical element. That’s just more and more true… If there’s anything good about the iPhone, it’s software. How many companies in the world can do really great software? We do it with an incredible research group, the willingness to take on the toughest software problems, and just stick at them, and to have a variety of hardware partners, and the biggest application software base.
We’re unique in this world of software. Will Nokia step up to a world where software is super-important? It’s not clear. Will Sony? Well, they’re trying, but so far it’s been tough for them. And if you look at the whole traditional consumer-electronics set of companies, most of those are going to be more supplying components and hardware systems. The software industry, which we’re a major part of, is going to be driving the magic in those things.
So the key trend to look at is the importance of software, and then say who really has shown the ability to do strong software? In some ways, just we have. If you define it more broadly, yes, Apple has done a few things well.
Full Q&A, in which Gate’s also takes pains to highlight Mac market share (he’s scared, and rightfully so), here.
Bill Gates is delusional if he really believes that only Microsoft has shown the ability to do “strong software,” especially since Microsoft’s actual forte is producing software that’s infamous for weakness, not only in terms of security, but also in the areas of reliability, originality, elegance, and intuitiveness.
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Microsoft never ceases to amaze. It’s all messaging, with little substance. They are like a political machine.
Hey, wait… has anyone ever seen Gates and Bush at the same place, at the same time?
“The phone space is one where we have been focusing.”
One? These morons try to focus on ALL spaces. How clear is this focus?
Microsoft has “…a variety of hardware partners, and the biggest application software base.”
Is “variety” defined as the same crappy Microsoft software installed on different phones? Whoopee! The phone manufacturers are already like the PC manufacturers who are stuck with Microsoft’s garbage and will only compete on price. This leaves a lot of room for quality, and Apple is more than happy to step in.
Then there’s the “biggest software base” line. I’ve seen a lot of software on the PC side. It sucks and I don’t want to use it. A more accurate description might have been “biggest just-good-enough software base.” I get along quite nicely free of anything Microsoft on my iMac thank you. My iPhone will be the same way.
Bill, biggest ≠ better.
Again, how clear is this focus when you have all of this variety to deal with, then throw boatloads of mediocre software on top of it?
Also like how MS and Ballmer/Gates keeps dragging out the whole “partners” thing in the same breath as talking about Zune.
Can we have a show of hands on how many “partners” are OK with getting Zuned up their Zune-hole??
With the other hand he holds the almighty STYLUS!!!
You Mac lemmings just don’t get it, do you?
The Microsoft ecosystem of partners has resulted in the best possible experience for consumers—at a great price. You Apple fanbois are paying way to much for a Mickey Mouse computer that can’t run the awesome breadth of software available to fortunate Windows users. If I want to get one of those super-cool Dell/Alienware things to play all of those nifty games you Mac dorks can’t play, great, I can. Or, if I want to save a little coin and build a machine, I can do that too. The case I picked up this weekend at the local community college’s computer show cost only $!5 and it is 3 feet tall X 1 foot wide. Awesome! That’s just under 1 meter/metre tall X 30cm wide for my metric friends all over the planet. It has like 4 or 5 bays for floppies and optical devices—and it’s beige to match my Zune. Cool!
I don’t want to get away from that partnership and variety thing, though. Take a look at Zune. The super-bright customer-focused software minds at Microsoft teaming up with Toshiba to deliver a first-rate MP3 player experience Apple could only dream of. You get all the variety of Zune hardware combined with the huge selection of software to interface with it: Zune Marketplace. Back to the drawing board, Apple.
Your potential. Our passion.
LOL!…. The multi-page article currently has an Apple ad running on each page… The Vista themed ones too. Gotta luv it.
Oh ya, Gates is real scared. You can tell by how defensive he was….taking nasty shots at Apple and Jobs. Not like like the folks here on this page.
Actually, Microsoft has done a good job with their convergence software on small mobile devices. Apple definitely has some catching up to do in this area. Naturally, I lean towards the Mac OS X whenever possible, but I won’t pretend that M$ hasn’t made some advancements in this new area for Apple. It’s a big challenge, but I feel that Apple is up to the task. I can’t wait till the iPhone’s release.
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer seem to have a new paradigm in their marketing strategy – lie through your freakin’ teeth, say whatever you want no matter how untrue, and dare people to catch you at it.
Looks like he came down with a case of Biden.
“BusinessWeek: I know you could afford the price, but do you think it’s a little steep?
Gates: Well, the marketplace will do a good job of judging that, and they can always change the price.”
Should’ve just left it at that. Those two and a half paragraphs were a waste.
Gates, and no one else for that matter, understands that making the hardware and the software will make for a MUCH more stable and reliable user experience. I have a Motorola Q. It is great in that is works with my corp. exhange server to sync my email, task, calendar, etc. But this is only when it works. When the software freezes or refuses to sync. the device isn’t worth anything. Nothing is more frustrating when the Microsoft software won’t allow you to answer a call. This has nothing to do with the hardware. I doubt iPhone users will have any trouble answering a phone call–EVER.
Bill Gates has done himself in and doesn’t even know it.
WinCE is Microsoft Windows in a microcosm. I wouldn’t exactly attribute the intermittent operational performance of WinCE to bugs, it’s more like bacteria. The devices on which WinCE runs, now those are bugs!
Gates is downplaying Apple as a competitor in the phone market because he knows it’s Symbian who will make Microsoft look like a savior by comparison. Symbian made some very, very stupid decisions from a programmer’s perspective which will ultimately spell its doom and Microsoft has recognized this for some time.
Unfortunately for Gates, Jobs will not only be faster to market, but the software orchestrating the user’s experience will eclipse yet another reduced instruction set of WinCE.
Bill Gates is towing the party line because that is what is expected from him by the shareholders and third-party developers.
Even though Microsoft is down by 30 with a minute in the half, he has to continue to cheer as though they were winning!
But, this isn’t the Superbowl, it’s only preseason and they could make a come back, but not before admitting to their mistakes and failures, some third-string cuts, and handing out some clean, fresh towels for the lipstick.
Gates says Apple has done some good things.
Well I guess! Generations of Windows OS’s have been based on Apple’s good things.
Gates has just realized that a closed system of hardware, software and media sales is the key to MP3 player nirvana.
I wonder how long it will take him to realize this applies to the cell phone as well. His Win CE partners are all about to be PlayedForSure.
Gates: “Apple has done a few things well.”
Me: Where’s my puke bucket? Apple has done quite a bit more than a few things well. And Gates still doesn’t get that it is the SYNERGY of hardware and software that Apple has done here…yet again. And Gates never seems to understand the importance of that synergy.
It does my heart good to know that the world’s richest man happens also to be a colossal jackass.
I am always confounded by Gates words, there are loads of em, but what is he actually trying to say, talk about verbal diarrhea so much is splattering out, but it is difficult to catch anything substantial, doesnt he realise this is bad for you. Gates had better realise soon people are a tad more savvy, post win95
Only if you define “good” very “broadly” will Gates admit Apple had done good software??? Sheesh.
Let us see what happens with the new Zune phone. Let’s compare Apples to Apples (no pun intended) and see wich company makes a better software package for their respective phones. I am sure Bill Gates is a little worried about how strong Apple Inc. has emerged in the last 6 years.
http://www.iphoneusers.com
The freaky thing is that he genuinely sounds beleaguered now. Not like the cocky Bill of yore. “Maybe I’m the only one.” “If you’re cool, does that mean you get to just lie all the time?”
Poor bay-bee!
It’s possible that MDN missed the point completely. This is one of those rare occasions…. That was a warning to Nokia et al… to get with the program here. Did I miss the boat?