“In fairness, as the old joke goes, predictions are very hard, especially ones about the future. Scouting a technology on the horizon is one thing; it’s another to foresee the business-execution problems and competitive troubles that might waylay it,” Bergstein reports. “But hey, this is Bill Gates. That savvy guy who has spent more than 30 years atop what remains (for now, at least) the dominant entity in personal computing, a company that pours $7 billion a year into research and development.”
MacDailyNews Take: “For now, at least.” Good one, Brian. They should play him onto stage with “Hail to the Thief.” Maybe Gates will regale CES attendees with how you spend $7 billion per year on R&D and still get totally spanked by Apple for the last 30+ years?
Bergstein continues, “Since this is Gates’ last keynote before he leaves his day-to-day Microsoft duties to focus on philanthropy, it’s as good a time as any to scour his track record.”
MacDailyNews Take: Praise Jobs, this is the last time we have to hear ol’ Kermit squeak out another sleep-inducing yawnfest.
Bergstein continues, “Even when Gates has been right, he’s been wrong. Take that 2001 speech in which Gates prophesied PCs in 75 percent of American homes. He also said that within five years, the most popular form of the computer would be the Tablet, a sleek device that responds to handwritten commands from a pen-like stylus. Gates didn’t come close. IDC counted 3.3 million Tablet sales worldwide in 2007, just 1.2 percent of all PCs.”
MacDailyNews Take: Don’t worry, Apple will more than make up for Microsoft’s ineptitude on the tablet front.
Many more wrong predictions by Gates in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz for the heads up.]