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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Google Android
Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Android
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/24/18715202/microsoft-bill-gates-android-biggest-mistake-interview "In the software world, particularly for platforms, these are winner-take-all markets. So the greatest mistake ever is whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is. That is, Android is the standard non-Apple phone platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win. It really is winner take all. If you˘re there with half as many apps or 90 percent as many apps, you˘re on your way to complete doom. There's room for exactly one non-Apple operating system and what˘s that worth? $400 billion that would be transferred from company G to company M." |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing toGoogle Android
Arlen G. Holder wrote:
Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Android The big mistake MS made was in working behind a walled garden against an open source consortium, in the case of early android touchscreen development, that would be the Open Handset Alliance "a consortium of 84[2] firms to develop open standards for mobile devices. Member firms include HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Google, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, T-Mobile, Sprint Corporation, Nvidia, and Wind River Systems.[3]" wp It is only more recently that MS has begun to recognize the power of open source. -- Mike Easter |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Google Android
"Mike Easter" wrote
| Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Android | | The big mistake MS made was in working behind a walled garden against an | open source consortium I'd say Bill Gates's big mistake was lack of vision. He let his greed, vanity and ambition rule him, which throttled what computing could be for many years. Likewise with Steve Jobs. Imagine if MS had been started by Craig Newmark. We wouldn't need OSS. We'd have common decency. |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losingto Google Android
Arlen G. Holder wrote:
Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Android That's why it's called a technological discontinuity. It's the thing every dominant high tech company fears. Something comes out of left field, and eats their lunch. Right now, it's Android and ChromeBooks in the consumer space. Paul |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoftlosing to Google Android
Mike Easter wrote:
Arlen G. Holder wrote: Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Android The big mistake MS made was in working behind a walled garden against an open source consortium, in the case of early android touchscreen development, that would be the Open Handset Alliance "a consortium of 84[2] firms to develop open standards for mobile devices. Member firms include HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Google, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, T-Mobile, Sprint Corporation, Nvidia, and Wind River Systems.[3]" wp It is only more recently that MS has begun to recognize the power of open source. There are so many things that MS did wrong and BG chooses *that* one!? Not even close. I'd say his biggest mistake was Steve Ballmer closely followed by IE. |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing toGoogle Android
On 6/24/2019 4:41 PM, Arlen G. Holder wrote:
Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Android https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/24/18715202/microsoft-bill-gates-android-biggest-mistake-interview "In the software world, particularly for platforms, these are winner-take-all markets. So the greatest mistake ever is whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is. That is, Android is the standard non-Apple phone platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win. It really is winner take all. If you¢re there with half as many apps or 90 percent as many apps, you¢re on your way to complete doom. There's room for exactly one non-Apple operating system and what¢s that worth? $400 billion that would be transferred from company G to company M." In 2014 I attended a Microsoft developer event in Sunnyvale where they were trying to get app developers to write apps for Windows Phone. What a fiasco. First, their development platform only ran on Windows 8, which few attendees were running. So they were allowing people to download a 30 day version of Windows 8 and run it on a virtual machine. But the Wi-Fi bandwidth was so poor that it took more than an hour to download both Windows 8 and Virtualbox. Even then there were issues in getting it to work, patches that the people running the event were not all familiar with. I finally got the development platform working after about six hours, but some attendees never got that far. If you could write an app, and get it onto the Windows Phone store withing 72 hours then they would send you an obsolete model of a Windows Phone (since no one actually had a Windows Phone to test their app on). And they served terrible food! At least I got a nice laptop backpack for wasting eight hours. Maybe it was already too late at that point for Windows Phone. But they clearly were never really serious about trying to make it a success. They should have been reaching out to the authors of every viable iPhone and Android app and offering them an advance if they would port their app to Windows Phone, and providing them with some devices to test the app on. How many developers would be willing to run out and buy a Windows Phone device, and spend time porting their app, when there was virtually no market for the app? |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Google Android
In article , sms
wrote: Maybe it was already too late at that point for Windows Phone. But they clearly were never really serious about trying to make it a success. They should have been reaching out to the authors of every viable iPhone and Android app and offering them an advance if they would port their app to Windows Phone, and providing them with some devices to test the app on. How many developers would be willing to run out and buy a Windows Phone device, and spend time porting their app, when there was virtually no market for the app? they did do that. |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Google Android
"Paul" wrote
| Something comes out of left field, and eats their | lunch. Right now, it's Android and ChromeBooks in | the consumer space. | Interestingly, Bill Gates and his alleged brilliance foresaw quite a bit but jumped in *too early*. He predicted ad-supported computing with Active Desktop in 1998. He predicted web services, even coming out with an entire, massive programming system for it (.Net) in 2001. He predicted something like ubiquitous phone use with his SPOT watch. In each case he was too early and the technology wasn't ready. But there was also a big factor of blinding greed. With Active Desktop he was trying to make extra money by selling ads on the desktop and having Windows be the middleman. The sheer greed and aggression of the endeavor blinded him to one big problem: No one was interested in "subscribing" to ads on their computer. Not to mention that few people were technically competent to do it. Most people I knew hadn't even noticed the Channel Bar billboard with ads on Win98. They were just used to see environmental advertising and didn't pay attention. They weren't about to go into the help to figure out how they might get a Citibank or Forbes "channel" ad embedded on their desktop. With .Net, there was another product without a market. Internet speeds were too slow for services in 2001. Most people didn't need services and still don't. Even now, with scripted webpages and highspeed connections, there's no market for Microsoft's Metro trinkets. Yet, in its own way, .Net was a brilliant idea: Provide a sandboxed API to allow full Windows functionality on webpages, in order to sell people their own computing power under the guise of a remote service. It was ActiveX on steroids. Unsafe, just like ActiveX, but at least they tried to make it safe. Companies like Adobe are just now getting around to instituting that dastardly plan. But it's still not because people need it. It's only because Adobe are a monopoly who can get away with it. "You want Photoshop? You rent. Go ahead and walk away. See if we care." But Bill Gates may deserve credit as the first evil genius to hatch the plan. And Microsoft have gone through something like 3 full APIs trying to pull it off. (I lost track. .Net, Modern, Metro, Universal, WinRT.... There was .Net API. Then I think there was something like semi-.Net with Metro. Then there was basically script in a webpage, which could be written in .Net or C++ and converted. All attempts to get payments from all parties in computing, with even developers having to pay a fee.) Longhorn was also ahead of it's time. Planned for 2005 release, it was an entire sandboxed Windows system based on .Net. Essentially, it was Windows with a kind of .Net VM built on top. (Contrary to popular belief, .Net is not really an API. It's just a gigantic, bloated wrapper. Like Java.) By their own admission, Longhorn failed because there was no hardware that could handle the incredible bloat. Not until 10 years later, with Win10, did they finally come close to having a sandboxed service OS with Win10. (Maybe handcuffs is more accurate than sandbox, and coercion is more accurate than "service", but they're getting there.) SPOT watch? That could have worked, if it wasn't ugly and as big as an orange. And if there had been adequate wifi buildout at the time. Also, Gates kept talking about getting "sports scores and stock quotes" from it. Hundreds of dollars to wear a big chunk on your wrist to play Dick Tracy with Wall St.? Not likely. Even now, the wealthy and gullible AppleSeeds are only slightly buying into the idea that they want an expensive device on their wrist to tell them how many fitness steps they still owe to their iPhone overlord before the end of the day. You can fool most of the AppleSeeds most of the time, but you can't expect to make billions on a useless, overpriced Dick Tracy knockoff. Yet, again, Gates was ahead of his time. But as usual, it was his greed and ambition that got him there. Microsoft always make the same mistake. They start with a bright idea to vacuum cash from your wallet. Only then do they try to figure out how to mold that into a saleable product. And only after that do they address the issue of how their bright idea might possibly be useful or interesting to anyone. That's playing out now with Win10. They're planning the product "on the fly", largely based on what people seem willing to put up with. |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Google Android
On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 07:36:00 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
There are so many things that MS did wrong and BG chooses *that* one!? Not even close. I'd say his biggest mistake was Steve Ballmer closely followed by IE. Given MS is one of the dominant platform players, I think the best thing he ever did, was, of course, linking with IBM in the days when there was no dominant "home" OS, and the second best thing he ever did was the marketing agreements with the manufacturers such that every PC comes with Windows, and the third best thing he did was MS Office grabbing the business market. After that, I can't think of anything in particular that Microsoft does better. Can you? |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Google Android
Updates, dated today:
Bill Gates: Windows Phone failed because I was too distracted by an antitrust case https://www.techspot.com/news/82671-bill-gates-windows-phone-failed-because-distracted-antitrust.html Bill Gates: You'd all be on Windows Mobile today, not Android, but I screwed up Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says the antitrust case stopped Microsoft delivering a mobile OS. https://www.zdnet.com/article/bill-gates-youd-all-be-on-windows-mobile-today-not-android-but-i-screwed-up/ "Had he not been distracted, Gates believes Windows Mobile would be what Android is today." Interview he https://youtu.be/ZMMZ1Qzr1ag |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losingto Google Android
Arlen _G_ Holder wrote:
Updates, dated today: Bill Gates: Windows Phone failed because I was too distracted by an antitrust case https://www.techspot.com/news/82671-...-phone-failed- because-distracted-antitrust.html Bill Gates: You'd all be on Windows Mobile today, not Android, but I screwed up. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says the antitrust case stopped Microsoft delivering a mobile OS. https://www.zdnet.com/article/bill-g...indows-mobile- today-not-android-but-i-screwed-up/ "Had he not been distracted, Gates believes Windows Mobile would be what Android is today." So the corporate criminal thinks that if the US gummint had left his shonky business practices alone, he'd have been able to corner *that* makrket too? Can you spell "excuses, excuses", Gates? Can you spell "second-rate coding standards", Gates? Interview he https://youtu.be/ZMMZ1Qzr1ag |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Google Android
In article , Arlen _G_ Holder
wrote: Bill Gates: Windows Phone failed because I was too distracted by an antitrust case no, it failed because it was too little, too late. by the time windows phone came out, android had already established themselves and windows phone offered no advantages over either of those, especially with limited developer support. it also ****ed off customers and developers. just ask anyone who bought window phone 7 only to find out it was a dead end when windows phone 8 came out and had to buy new phones, which they did, except that they were ios and android. https://www.techspot.com/news/82671-...iled-because-d istracted-antitrust.html Of course, the reality may be more complicated than that. The general consensus among ex-Microsoft employees and pundits seems to be that the company tried to replicate the traditional Windows licensing model that worked well for desktop PCs but was otherwise inadequate for mobile devices. Then it alienated app developers and hardware partners with platform reboots, eventually sealing the fate of Windows on phones. they're right, especially the platform reboots. |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Google Android
In article , nospam
wrote: Bill Gates: Windows Phone failed because I was too distracted by an antitrust case no, it failed because it was too little, too late. by the time windows phone came out, android had already established ...ios and android.. themselves and windows phone offered no advantages over either of those, especially with limited developer support. it also ****ed off customers and developers. just ask anyone who bought window phone 7 only to find out it was a dead end when windows phone 8 came out and had to buy new phones, which they did, except that they were ios and android. https://www.techspot.com/news/82671-...ailed-because- d istracted-antitrust.html Of course, the reality may be more complicated than that. The general consensus among ex-Microsoft employees and pundits seems to be that the company tried to replicate the traditional Windows licensing model that worked well for desktop PCs but was otherwise inadequate for mobile devices. Then it alienated app developers and hardware partners with platform reboots, eventually sealing the fate of Windows on phones. they're right, especially the platform reboots. |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Google Android
"Ned Latham" wrote
| | Can you spell "excuses, excuses", Gates? | Strange excuses at that. What about the *total* failure of Kin, SPOT watches, and buying Nokia? They tried numerous times to make it work. But they wanted to start out with lockdown. The real problem, it seemed to me, was that MS thought they could "leverage" their desktop monopoly to take over phones and didn't realize that they were very different devices. For a period of time they were advertising everywhere about how people would increase the quality of their "experiences" by living in a world of Microsoft screens. PCs, tablets, phones, kitchen counter computers... all syncing. The trouble was that no one needed them to sync. And the tablets never took off. Then the phones never took off. So they were marketing a product line they didn't even have. "Where do you want to go today?" the ads asked. But MS could only take you to the office. As with so many things (like Active Desktop, Passport, DotNet and Hailstorm) Microsoft were imagining the easiest way to make a bundle and have a monopoly, when they should have been thinking about the best way to make a product that would be useful. (DotNet did end up successful, but not for the Web services they were hoping to monopolize. It really only had success as a server-side Java replacement.) Gates and Ballmer wanted to own the world, and thought they had a right to. Ballmer actually said as much in a Business Week interview in 2005: "We will rule the Web. We will rule the Web." Such breathtaking arrogance and smallmindedness. And now Gates, who's marketed himself as a mega- philanthropist as he tries to control education while pretending to give away money, is complaining that he'll suffer if Elizabeth Warren gets elected and taxes him 6% more. He claims he's giving away half his wealth, yet he's upset about a 6% tax increase to pay for health care. He has no shame. |
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Bill Gates says his greatest mistake ever was Microsoft losing to Google Android
On Fri, 8 Nov 2019 22:53:54 -0500, Mayayana wrote:
Strange excuses at that. What about the *total* failure of Kin, SPOT watches, and buying Nokia? They tried numerous times to make it work. There is a 'strategy' going on here, by Bill Gates, which Mayayana is clearly aware of. The fact that Bill Gates said way back in June, and just now, again, in November, these exact words below, indicate Bill Gates is repeatedly attempting something of a marketing ploy, as Mayayana astutely noted. The date of this interview appears to be November 6th, 2019: o Bill Gates speaks at New York Times DealBook Conference - 11/6/2019 https://youtu.be/ZMMZ1Qzr1ag?t=1250 At 1250 seconds (~20 minutes) into that new interview, Bill Gates says... "There is no doubt that the anti-trust lawsuit ... and we would have been more focused on creating the phone operating system, where instead of using Android today, you would be using Windows Mobile. If it hadn't been for the anti-trust case... Oh we were so close. I was just too distracted. I screwed that up because of the distraction. We were just 3 months too late with the release Motorola would have used for the phone..." I work off of facts. o The fact is that Bill Gates is _repeatedly_ making this claim. The fact is that Bill Gates is _repeatedly_ making this claim, so, either he actually believes it (which, is a possibility), or he's trying to play the marketing game of some sort (which Mayayana seems to know better than I). |
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