For the greater part of his life, Bill Gates worked hard to make Microsoft what it is today. However, he hasn’t been an active part of the company for quite some time now, which gives him the freedom to honestly criticize the very company he created. Gates has now deemed Microsoft’s smartphone strategy somewhat of a mistake.
He was talking about Microsoft’s current performance in an interview on the CBS morning show. Gates first admitted that the company has made significant progress into the mobile arena with its Windows Phone offerings and Surface slates.
However, according to him, the company’s pace of innovation hasn’t been up to the mark and as a result, it stood well short of the ongoing competition in the smartphone and tablet market.
In his own words, “No, [Ballmer] and I are not satisfied that in terms of, you know, breakthrough things, that we’re doing everything possible. We didn’t miss cell phones, but the way that we went about it didn’t allow us to get the leadership. So it’s clearly a mistake.”
This shows that Gates also shared his views with Microsoft’s current CEO, Steve Ballmer. Gates further reminded the viewers that even when he is being critical of the company’s performance in the mobile arena, he still has complete faith in Ballmer’s leadership, ““[There] were a lot of amazing things that Steve’s leadership got done with the company in the last year. Windows 8 is key to the future, the Surface computer. Bing, people are seeing as a better search product, Xbox.”
Source: CBS
Courtesy: BGR
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Mr. Gates. why has Microsoft lost the skills of observation and the razor sharp focus on what customers want and need, that enabled you to dislodge and obliterate market leaders Lotus 123 and Word Perfect?
You had succeeded to make Excel and Word more functional, more open, easier to use and backward compatible with existing software and procedures.
Now, backward compatible is a bad word. Old UI features are not augmented but replaced, without any new features that would require such a replacement, obsoleting user skills without need.
Microsoft injured itself by forcing the new UI as a replacement on desktop computers, instead of making it available as a new option people could get into when they had time and felt like it. People love exploring new stuff at their own pace, without loosing productivity by being forced.
Customers don’t care about Microsoft’s corporate agenda. You have forgotten to entice them with something that helps them, that is more useful than the competition. Apple gave you a serious case of tollbooth envy, but that doesn’t mean you can do it too, cause Apple has a garden and you have a ghetto…
I’ll stay far from both, and I hope Users around the world will wake up from the Apple hysteria and vote with their wallets against closed systems and tollbooth mania.