In a recent interview, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates spilled his thoughts on Apple's iPad
Over the past few years, Bill Gates has been as big a proponent of tablet computing as anyone, and he once remarked in 2001 that the tablet form factor would be the most popular PC device in America within 5 years. It must therefore bug Gates to no end that for most people in America, Apple’s iPad will be their first introduction to a tablet style device.
Or maybe not.
Speaking to Brent Schlender of Bnet, Bill Gates laid out his opinions on Apple’s latest creation and, suffice it to say, he’s not terribly impressed.
“You know, I’m a big believer in touch and digital reading,” Gates told Schlender, “but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard – in other words a netbook – will be the mainstream on that.”
It’s obviously pre-mature to declare the iPad a hit, but I think the success of the iPhone strongly suggests that there really isn’t a strong market for a touchscreen/keyboard combo. When you try and put to much into a tablet device, you’re basically turning it into a modified laptop computer, which defeats the very purpose of having a distinct tablet market in the first place – and helps explain why almost all tablet initiatives thus far have failed to gain any traction.
Gates, though, isn’t afraid to heap praise upon Apple when recalling his first impressions of the iPhone when Steve Jobs announced it in January 2007.
“So, it’s not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, ‘Oh my God, Microsoft didn’t aim high enough.’ It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.’”
Well you certainly have to applaud Gates for his honesty, but you have to wonder if it bothers Gates that Microsoft, since his departure as CEO, has basically been playing catchup in almost every market in which it’s a player.
