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In an interview with Charlie Rose on Monday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates shared his thoughts on why iPad was a success and Microsoft’s tablet PC back in 2000 was a failure. The entrepreneur, however, thinks that the company might have something great in hand to change the game.

When asked about Microsoft’s original tablet PC idea launched in 2000, Gates admitted that its was “way too early” even though it was before Apple thought to explore the tablet PC market.

Microsoft introduced the idea of tablet PC way back in 2000. In November 2000, Bill Gates first unveiled the tablet PC concept to a crowd of over 12,000 people at the Computer Dealers’ Exhibition (COMDEX) and released a tablet OS version of Windows in 2005. Lenovo even built a tablet based on it. But, the products were flop. Ten years later, Apple released its first iPad, which was sold on the very first year over 14.8 million units around the world.

The host Charlie Rose pressed Gates to say why Steve Jobs was able to make the iPad so successful when Microsoft’s first tablets flopped. Bill Gates admitted, “He did some things better than I did. His timing in terms of when it came out, the engineering work, just the package that was put together. The tablets we had done before, weren’t as thin, they weren’t as attractive as what came along.”

Here’s an old video where Steve Jobs is listening to Bill Gates’ iPad/iPad2/iCloud idea

Gates hopes that Microsoft’s newly launched Surface tablet could be a game changer. We will see whether Gates’ dreams materialize or not in future.

Source: Business Insider

Image Credit: Microsoft

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