What’s the next killer app? What’s your biggest wish? The Microsoft chairman responds to readers’ letters in MSNBC’s online forum.
Bill Gates Answers Reader’s Questions
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Aids research? Multimedia PCs? The next big thing? yadda yadda yadda… these comments scream PR machine. Give me a break.
I personally believe that this material belongs on osnews.com. For better or worse, BG has broad influence in the industry. It’s no different that hearing what Torvalds has to say.
“I personally believe that this material belongs on osnews.com. For better or worse, BG has broad influence in the industry. It’s no different that hearing what Torvalds has to say.”
Perhaps, but Torvalds community support isn’t manufactured by a PR company… Yes, it may be important to post the link, but only as long as we keep it in context so that nobody believes these questions are really legit.
This reminds me of ‘Will BeOS end world hunger?’
Why, of course it will.
http://www.bedope.com/archive/060898.html
“Perhaps, but Torvalds community support isn’t manufactured by a PR company… Yes, it may be important to post the link, but only as long as we keep it in context so that nobody believes these questions are really legit.”
The problem is that may cases the same can said of Torvalds community (aka sites like slashdot) The point is let’s just hear what all the big players have to say.
I’d much rather hear from Bill than from Ballmer. At least Bill knows SOMETHING about computers.
I just love his reply about Linux and UNIX:
‘The software ecosystem can accommodate many different development models, and healthy competition is what produces new innovations and drives technology forward. We focus our efforts on developing products based on the commercial model, which we believe produces the best possible software for our customers.’
Yet, his — and he has done it to — company is always trash-talking OSS.
Michael Lauzon, Founder
The Quill Society
http://www.quillsociety.org/
[email protected]
I have to join the people calling this PR trash. It sounds like a FAQ written by a PR department.
Maybe it would be important to listen to the big names in the industry, if they had anything to say. I have read some good interviews with gates where he gives oppinions on technology and culture, but it sounds like he just wasn’t inspired.
Q. Isn’t Microsoft great?
A. Microsoft is great, and furthermore Microsoft does great things.
Reminds me of the wandering nonsensical answers that politicians give to screened questions at the debates. Yuck.
And how many times must Microsoft people use the word “innovation” in one article????!!
This is not a question and answer at all.
I don’t mind OSNews posting a link to it, though.
The empty can rattles the most..
I await the day when linux is more popular, bug ridden, virus-laden os-of-choice drivel so I can be the first to endorse another OS and re-invent the wheel again..
– Microsoft Troll
Gates doesn’t do the fireside chat thing. He doesn’t sit and have an honest conversation because he doesn’t know how. People skills is something he’s never been able to pick up.
“The point is let’s just hear what all the big players have to say.”
So what did Gates actually say? I couldn’t get any worthwhile meaning from any of it.
“At least Bill knows SOMETHING about computers.”
I’d be curious to see some proof of that.
“At least Bill knows SOMETHING about computers.”
I’d be curious to see some proof of that.
He co-wrote Altair basic…all right, he helped co-write it….okay he was in the room
“I don’t believe that the creation of software will ever be fully automated” -BG
I guess he doesn’t believe that Artificial Intelligence will ever be created.
When asking Mr. MS, they never asking him why he didn’t choose to base his OS on Xenix. For a while they were touting it as the next big thing at MS.
What if Xenix eventually migrated down to the consumer desktop market like XP.
Bill Gates has to spin the PR, he has investors to think about and the public image of MS.
To create software you must first have an idea. The idea may be the outcome of some serious pondering or the idea may just popped into your head.
The next step is to put the idea into a logical plan so it could be used to write the actual code.
With current technology, it is possible to create programs that generate code now. Some programs can help with the planning but not complete the plan on their own.
AIs have shown they are capable of solving problems that are presented to them but no AI has shown the capability to think of a problem to solve.
If AIs do gain the capability to think of their own problems to solve, what makes you think they would want to solve our problems?
So until we figure out how to create thinking machines, there probably will not be any automated software creation.
The next thing is interview with Rob Enderle, I guess ?
DG
Gates doesn’t do the fireside chat thing. He doesn’t sit and have an honest conversation because he doesn’t know how. People skills is something he’s never been able to pick up.
Agreed. When he came to Australia he basically looked like the rain man as if he was almost ready to burst out and say, “who is on first base?!”
Mind you, Scott is no better. 2-3days ago he gets up on stage with the CEO on AMD to promote their new Opteron/Solaris partnership. To be completely honest, the body language and tone of his voice sounded as if something or someone had died.
I really wonder what on earth is happening with the CEO’s of the technology industry, the complete lack of basic people and marketing skills. The ability to crack a joke to keep the press on the end of each word said.
I’m in thorough agreement. It’s unfortunate, because it would be really interesting to hear what someone in his position really thinks about things. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen too often — people in positions of incredible power (heading a government, being the richest person on earth, etc.) have way too much riding on their public image to just let loose and talk without being guarded. Occasionally one will write a more honest memoir, once they are no longer in such a position — and I’d be very interested to see something like that from Bill Gates someday. Hopefully it’ll happen.
Whether or not Gates knows much about computers or software engineering, what he does have plenty of are ideas. He had a vision of computers in every home and office, computers that non-technical people could use to do impressive things, and he’s been quite successful at making that vision a reality. I _personally_ hate the way he’s done it, both in terms of the software his company has produced and the business practices he’s used (read: the laws he’s broken) to dominate the market; but he’s obviously a brilliant man. I don’t think it’d do anyone well, particularly his competition, to forget that.
An MS owned news website asks non-challenging questions of MS Chairman, so what?
Bill only ever answers the questions he wants to, indeed he only ever gets asked the questions he wants to answer (he managed to turn Jeremy Paxman from a Rottweiler to a Shitzu). I don’t see the news in this.
never has been never will be. Gate’s gift is in commoditizing other people’s ideas. He reacts but is not all that proactive and he has missed or been late to the boat on some pretty important things including the internet and the GUI.
He is successful because of aggressive pricing (compared to apple which is really not saying much), dumb luck (ibm let him keep the rights of dos), some savy business moves (buying dos for next to nothing), some ethically questionable business moves, and because he got to stand on the shoulders of the giant (ibm) who gave him his in to corporate computing.
Net: i don’t value bill’s vision much about PCs. He made some good decisions and got in the game early but he owes a lot of his success to dumb luck, the mistakes of others, and unethical business conduct. Not my hero and not the guy to be talking about the future of computing. He’ll just follow apple like he always has but he is the guy to talk about making a successful business.
Thanks, Eugenia. Some of us do think this stuff is interesting
I’m not sure you give him enough credit. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying he’s a hero. Of course there was a fair amount of dumb luck — that’s true of everyone in positions of power. And, as I stated, I recognize that he’s broken laws to get where he’s at. But I also think that getting there required immense talent. Maybe your right that his talent consists only in commoditizing other people’s ideas; I don’t know. If so, he’s unbelievably good at it. I just find it hard to believe that you can get so far without having a single original idea. Perhaps I’m being too romantic.
“…co-wrote Altair Basic…?” What Microsoft originally did was PORT the freely available Basic from the DEC PDP-10 to the Altair, as you noted Bill Gates personal involvement in the coding is likely to have been very slight.
Nobody would want to build anything on top of Xenix, anyone remember the “Microsoft strikes gold!” print ads featuring a 286 CPU? Microsoft didn’t even understand Xenix so they contracted SCO to support it for them. Microport, Esix, Coherent and Unixware quickly surpassed Xenix development anyway.
check it out http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/
Also read his books. This guy is not stupid.
Torvalds rules