Bill Gates: In His Words, Then and Now – News and Analysis by PC Magazine

Posted by: clickry on: June 29, 2008

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More than twenty-five years ago, the very first issue of PC Magazine covered the work between IBM and Microsoft, work that originated in the first PC. In 1982, editor-in-chief Dave Bunnell sat down with Gates in the first of what would be several interviews over the years, culminating in the Bill Gates “exit interview” that appeared just a few days ago.

The differences between the two interviews are, on one hand, stark: in 1982, Gates helmed a small team of developers, and intimately guided both what emerged as Windows and the software and interface that powered the IBM PC. By 2008, Gates had transformed himself into a visionary, evolving from architecting memos on strategic direction (“the Internet Tidal Wave”) to guiding Microsoft into the future.

Lance Ulanoff has his own farewell message for Bill Gates.

In 1982, Gates is engaged, focused, hands-on; in 2008, he seems nostalgic, the result of shifting the company’s day-to-day operations into the hands of Steve Ballmer. But consider the differences between our interviews in 2004 and 2005: in the 2004 interview, Gates delves into the intricacies of the text indexer used within Windows and Outlook; in 2005, Gates seems more comfortable talking about the future of Windows and computing. In 1982, Gates talked animatedly about “verb” commands such as PAINT and CIRCLE, and their direct effects on the operating system. It’s probably fair to say that Gates’ evolution was in part shaped by his book, The Road Ahead, which he wrote in 1995.

Certain themes manifest themselves across the years: in 2004, for example, Gates notes that the company is “extremely serious” about search: “We are extremely serious about search,” he said. “We’ve done some good things in search, but we thought the Inktomi thing would keep up more than it did. It didn’t.”

In 2008, of course, Microsoft still hasn’t been able to do a deal with Yahoo, even though search was considered a key component in any possible deal.

During the same year, Gates also notes that Google is the “current rock star,” and compliments them on their “super-good job” on search. Compare that to how Gates prickles when asked about Linux in 2003:

But Unix systems have been your primary competition.
Gates: In the past decade Unix, in all its forms, has been our primary server competitor.
And what about Linux?
Gates: It is gaining share in the Unix space.
But not at your expense?
Gates: Our aggregate server share, year to year, was up according to most industry observers. Certainly, the Windows share of servers is strong.
So you don’t see Linux as a strong competitor?
Gates: It is a competitor primarily on the server.

The tension fairly crackles.

Over the years, Gates has been in the unique position to help evolve his predictions and prophecies into self-fulfilling ones. Consider his quote from 2005: “And PCs will get more specialized,” Gates said. “We’ll have ones that get down to be as small as a phone, and ones that control big wall-sized displays. Obviously, with Media Center we’re now controlling the big screen in the living room and connecting you up at 10 feet away, so we’re able to have communications between the 10 foot and 2 foot experience.”

Granted, that’s a few years after Windows smartphones launched, and after the company’s “Surface” initiative has slowly evolved into both tabletops as well as wall-mounted displays.

But there have been more than a few flops, too. When asked about failures such as the SPOT devices, and middling successes such as the Tablet PC, Gates waxes sanguine:

“My prognosis, you can call it stubbornness, is simply that it is not ready for the mainstream yet,” Gates said. “We have to keep improving the software and hardware. But I have no doubt that the current way we interact—which is overwhelmingly a keyboard and mouse way—in the next decade will be changed deeply. Not that it will go away, but it will be supplemented by speech, vision, ink-type things.”

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