“The iPad is one of the most popular consumer products of all time, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect,” David Needle reports for TabTimes. “Just asked Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates.”
With Windows 8 Microsoft is trying to gain share by what has been dominated by the iPad-type device. But a lot of those users are frustrated, they can’t type, they can’t create documents, they don’t have Office there. We’re providing them with something… without giving up the benefits of the PC. – Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates
Gates also touted the software giant’s own tablet products as the best of both (PC and tablet) worlds. ‘Windows 8 really is revolutionary in that it takes the benefits of the tablet and PC and supports both of those,’ he said. ‘So if you have Surface, Surface Pro you’ve got that portability of the tablet, the richness of the keyboard and Microsoft Office from the PC.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Once a liar, always a liar.
Obviously, iPad users can type.
Obviously, iPad users can create documents.
Obviously, by its wide-ranging enterprise acceptance, iPad users don’t need Office.
This is quickly teaching the rest of the world that they don’t need Office. Microsoft, by stupidly withholding it, and Apple, by providing compelling alternatives, are kicking one of Microsoft’s two legs right out from underneath them. iPad, iPhone and iOS, along with Microsoft’s utter, laughable incompetence, is taking care of the other leg, Windows, in rapid fashion.
Who’s really frustrated here? Bill Gates, the passive-agressive projectionist, and Microsoft — due to the reality that iPad users actually exist (well over 100 million, in fact) and Surface users simply do not.
What’s next, is Billy the mentally ill boy going to lash out at iPod, claiming users can’t listen to music, can’t create playlists, and don’t have access to the Zune Marketplace and that they should therefore have Zunes instead? Following that outburst, will Billy claim iPhone users can’t take photos or post to MySpace and they should instead have Kins?
Freud would have a field day with this guy.
Listen, you liar, we told you idiots that, and why, the Surface would fail last year. Let’s face it, this whole buying a stairway to heaven isn’t going to work out for a thieving old liar like you. Why don’t you give us your ill-gotten billions and we’ll do far better things with it than looting poor people and helping to finance Monsanto.
Related articles:
Microsoft’s Surface sales figures are in, and they’re a total disaster – July 30, 2013
Why Microsoft’s Surface utterly failed and Apple’s iPad succeeded wildly – July 19, 2013
Microsoft earnings, sales badly miss expectations; $900 million inventory writedown on Surface tablet flop – July 18, 2013
iPad roadkill: Microsoft’s Surface flops despite relentless advertising – July 11, 2013
Oh! You don’t use MS Office? Gee, you must be frustrated!
– No, not at all! Why should I?
Couldn’t agree more.
I have been using a Mac since 1992, and have learned over a dozen apps throughout my design career, yet any time I have to use Word or PowerPoint, it is an exercise in frustration. Normally with every app you learn, the next one is a bit easier. Not so with Microsoft Office. They shun every standard, and basic tools and options are buried under layers of dialogs. Even the most basic text manipulation becomes an arcane process. I just had to use Word the other day for a small project, and was reminded of its dysfunctional workflow.
I would rather peck away on a beat up Smith Corona than use Microsoft Word.
His wife and children are the “frustrated”.
…due to the ban on Apple products in their household. Bill is such a douche
Well, to be fair I doubt Jobs had many MS devices for use in his home. And frankly most posters here, including me, likely have none either. Just sayin’ gates has done a lot for charity, he is not all bad.
“he is not all bad”
He does a lot for charity, but balances it out by calling iPad users frustrated and killing people with Monsanto.
Yeah, he gives to charity alright – by making schools use their money to buy MicroShit products.
I agree, Gates is not “all bad”, just 99.95%.
Jobs didn’t have to ban MS devices for appearances sake. He just let people do what they wanted. Happened to turn out nobody wanted MS devices. A feeling that seems to be spreading.
Let’s not forget that the reason he can indulge in such largesse is because he amassed his fortune through illegal anticompetitive monopoly tactics. It’s easy to be generous when your using other people’s stolen money.
Like a mafia don handing out wads of bills to waiters that the crime boss got by stealing from a pension fund.
iOS users — Billy’s developing a vaccine for that.
his refusal to use modern tech is ridiculous…
Ouch…. MDN went for a home run swing on that comment.
Bill Gates anti-Apple comments are right in MacDailyNews’ wheelhouse.
… Bill Gates: “a lot of those users are frustrated, they can’t type, they can’t create documents, they don’t have Office there.” And MDN said “iPad users CAN type, they CAN make documents”. Guess what – BOTH are right. I seldom use our iPad (I have MacBook Pro) – except when trying to figure out how to do what my wife wants to do and can’t. SHE is the user who is frustrated, at least until I figure it out and show her. Then “it” becomes “easy”.
Gates is not lying, not mistaken, he’s just referring to my wife, not to a younger and/or more computer-savvy user.
Your wife is an idiot.
My 71 year old mother hates computers, loves the iPad.
I did not have to show her a single thing, she happily and easily figured it out on her own.
If you really NEED the features of Office, those that exceed the consumer-friendly features of iWork, maybe a tablet is not for you.
Even then, Pages will read most anything created with Word.
Jeez MDN… Don’t sugar-coat it.
I hope everyone at Microsoft continues to think this way.
You mean the way the rest of the world doesn’t? 🙂
YES MDN!
So frustrated that the ipad doesn’t have a pitiful keypad in glaring ugly colors or a kickstand.
Gee, I wish MY iPad had one of those nifty kick stands. Wouldn’t that be SO cool?
LORDY and please don’t forget to add in innovating MS features like “klicking” you can dance to Apple!
FWIW, I own three iPads w/smart covers and one Surface Pro. The kickstand *does* work better at its purpose than the smart cover. Don’t know that I’d like the extra thickness in my iPad three the kickstand would require, but it *is* functional.
As for the funny cover colors, doesn’t the smart cover offer the same range of colors?
While Keynote and Numbers on iOS are great, I am not as excited about Pages. In fact, for typing a non-page layout document, I have recently discovered that Google Drive is much better suited. It has the most common formatting buttons front and center with options to get to more. Pages on the other hand requires multiple taps to something bold. I am hoping it will be updated soon.
I opened up a .docx Word doc in the beta iCloud version of Pages and the type format palette couldn’t be easier to use. I’m sure Apple is planning on revisiting the way it works on mobile devices.
Use pages on the web for your more sophisticated formatting needs.
Google Docs is a piece of (insert expletive here). Read the product support forums for google docs and you will wonder why companies are trusting it with their valuable documents.
I have to disagree. I find Pages great, and MS-Word a comparative annoyance. They both get the job done with a lot of great features, but Pages is just nicer to use.
Bill G: “…they don’t have Office…”
anevilmeme: “iWork bitch!”
Bomber… AMF !! BILL… AMF !! Microshaft…AMF !!!
HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
As a recent switcher from Windows I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Windows has had its day in the sun. And as the shadows lengthen in the evening of Windows’ dominance, we can reflect back and say that Windows’ former attraction, pervasiveness and an abundance of apps, is now overshadowed by OS X which has just as diverse a palette of apps and developer base, but more to the point, is much easier to use than the old clunker Windows.
Bill Gates would have been right in the early to mid 2000’s but as we enter the second decade of the third millennium AD, Windows is as relevant today as a tanner (leatherworker) was in the Middle Ages. The smell of a tannery was horrible and it had its day in the sun but automation and industrialisation saw the end of the tannery as a vocation and business.
And so it is with Windows. Its relevance is faded. Office is not the draw it once was and Bill Gates is relying on faded glory to foreshadow the future, always a bad thing to do in the technology sector which never, ever looks backwards, only forwards.
Well actually, M$ strategy is somewhat working. At my company IT doofuses will not allow iPads to be purchased, they are still waiting for the M$ tablet that works with “Office”. None the less there are a fair number of BYOD iPads running around, including executives. Thankfully our corporate phone is iPhone (IT couldn’t figure out a way to create a fake case for Android), so the infrastructure of getting lotus notes mail and calendar are in place to support iPad. (I know lotus notes sucks, but it’s what IT has installed!)
The views of Gates are about as relevant to MS as those of Woz are to the current Apple line-up. Once you leave h kitchen you become consumer and not in a position to affect the outcome.
This guy is more than just a little delusional. To claim that the people who are buying iPads are frustrated because they can’t do this or that or the other thing is so disingenuous. In typical Microsoft fashion, he presumes to know what users want. Well, so did SJ, but SJ was right. This guy is just so obviously wrong as the sales of his tablet/PC ought to be telling him.
Gates is spouting stuff he knows to be nonsense delivering his disingenuous oratory with both eyes closed, occasionally opening one eye to see if anyone is yet falling for his line of malarkey like a snake oil salesman would.
This is the part I’m most disappointed with him. When he was running Microsoft it was to be expectd that he would be an advocate and a sales voice for the company. But now that he is not, chairman or not, he should stick to speaking authoritatively only about things with which he can know personally. He can know the merits and application of Microsoft technologies, but not whether or not they are better than a competitors. When he does speak out of turn we learn conclusively to suspect everything he says about everything. Which is a shame because in his philanthropic work he shows every sign of doing good things.
I assert that he can’t know whether or not iPad users are frustrated because when the namesake and head of the Bill and Melinda Gares Foundation shows up with boatloads of money at his disposal, people are not going to tell what they know he wouldn’t want to hear. Think “Undercover Bosses” Bill.
Gates is frustrated because if things keep going with Microsoft the way they are he can’t keeping holding the title of the world’s richest man on the planet year after year. Right now, he’s only worth $72.7 billion which is just a slight edge over Carlos Slim with a measly $72.1 billion. If Microsoft revenues continue to drop, Bill Gates is going to end up in second place which will be a serious blow to his bank account. Anyway, when a man has that much money, he can live in the past all he wants.
It doesn’t matter what Bill says about the Surface, I think a good bunch of us at MDN realize that it would have taken an inspired evangelist like Zune Thang to make the Surface as popular as the Zune. Without someone like that, the Surface is diving faster than the Zune.
Fortunately with guys like Gates and Balmer MS is doing that long slow Titanical sink.
MIcrosoft has offered what it thinks people will need in the 21st century and the people don’t want it.
Bill Gates has been out of touch for years. He dismissed the iPad when it was launched and still does. His own alternative to the iPad has flopped to the tune of a billion dollars and still he hasn’t learned from the fiasco.
If he refuses to learn from his mistakes, he is condemned to repeat those same mistakes until his company ceases to exist.
The article is THREE months old. I’m not certain that Bill Gates is saying those words today, after the recent abysmal sales reports.
Maybe MDN meant to post this story instead:
http://tabtimes.com/news/ittech-os-windows/2013/07/31/microsoft-losing-money-surface-has-only-sold-17-million-tablets
I was just going to point that out. I thought, “He can’t still be harping on this after the last time.” This is from May 6th and MDN did already report on it.
MDN: regurgitating old news for clicks™
Let’s hope they keep pursuing the same false hope and stragedy to keep draining Microsoft coffers dry in lost sales and throwing R&D money in the toilet until the operation pares down and eventually closes up shop. Those tumbleweeds are ready to blow through Redmond town.
Well I personally AM frustrated! The transporter system doesn’t work properly (still beta???) and the time shift App sent me to the wrong date. And where’s that sub-space radio they’ve been talking about? 😉
I’m just going to leave this here. Discuss.
http://tinyurl.com/p5r26kj
Do people really click on these links? What do you think? 10% do? 90% do? It’s really not worth the trouble of putting them out on the internet, is it?
Hey, the picture of the villainous Billy The Kid in Albuquerque and the Ballmer Monkey Boy Dance video never fail to lift my day, so THANKS, Sarasota!
Just shows to go ya, there’s one born every minute.
So even after you were told what the link was your comment proves that you are actually the fool.
In pre-renessaince times the lord of the valley had his castle on a hill to survey & protect his entire world.
Today the world has expanded beyond the MS valley and the Lord of the Castle is living in a fantasy world.
“Richness” of the keyboard? He actually believes that?
I’m sure he truly believes in the richness of the keyboard. Like with WordStar, Wang IOS and WordPerfect for example, the keyboard ruled supreme. There were function and alt keys all over the place. You didn’t grow up with keyboard templates like I did. Buy software, get a keyboard template to match.
MS Office carried this tradition by being keyboard driven as much as possible. Heck, the mouse was just an afterthought. I knew people who complained if they had to move their hands away from the keyboard because they had thoroughly memorized all the key combinations to accomplish everything. Bill Gates came up in those times and that how he still thinks. This touch stuff came along while Bill Gates was an old man with his old ways of thinking how things should be accomplished. I adapted and don’t care one way or another as long as the task gets accomplished. Keyboard. Touch. Both use fingers.
Microsoft needs to wake up . It has been 6 years .
This is an old comment ..
As Apple as I am .. What else is he supposed to say (back then) ?
The only thing that frustrate me on the iPad is that women in the porn movies being watch on my iPad is not live and in person at my house. Other then that I very happy with my iPad.
I don’t think the problem is with Gates being a liar or ready for a Freudian couch. Rather, he is hopelessly lost in the 1990s. His ideas of what people want are based in the 1990s. He has never been forward thinking and MS is at its best when it steals…er…copies…er…understands what other have done. Of course people can type on the iPad! If they want a physical keyboard there are many to choose from starting at $50 or less. But he doesn’t pay attention to what’s going on. He’s back in the 1990s looking at billions pouring in from his illegal monopoly. Not a liar. Not mentally ill. Just a lost little nerdboy wanting to return to his Mommy’s basement.
You really can’t expect Bill Gates to EVER admit that another company makes a better product than they do. Not ever. So take his statement with a grain of salt. All of these ad hominem attacks on Gates are so beneath Mac users. Just remember that he’s the one who has to put lipstick on a pig — and then kiss it in public!
Lets all sit down with our favorite digital mobile devices and listen to the ‘has been’ trying to save Balmers ‘face’.
Anyway, I can’t remember the last time Gates was relevant.
Perhaps in the mid-90s.