Microsoft is yet to provide any official updated sales figures for Windows 8 and Surface tablets, leaving it up to market watchers and analyst to provide estimates.
And with varying estimates comes varying degree of evaluations — some terming Microsoft’s latest products as letdowns, while others saying that both the operating system and tablets are doing fine for the first generation products they are.
But in a new interview at CNBC, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates talked about both products, as well as the company’s efforts in entering the tablet market.
When asked about what he thought what the future would be like with all these tablets competing with the traditional PCs, Gates said that Windows 8 was designed to work with both types of devices, and in fact, Surface tablets can have the portability of a tablet while providing the uses of a PC:
“It’s going to be harder and harder to distinguish products, whether they are tablets or PCs. With Windows 8, Microsoft is trying to gain share in what has been dominated by the iPad type device. A lot of those users are frustrated. They can’t type. They can’t create documents. They don’t have Office there. So we are providing something with the benefits they have seen that have made that a big category without giving up what they expect in a PC.”
Gates also touched upon all the strong technology companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Samsung, and how Microsoft was well-prepared to compete with them:
“If you do deep software both on the client and deep services, if you have things that are unique for businesses, which is a particular strength of Microsoft, the software business is an amazing business to be in both in terms of growth and the profitability dynamics.”
You can watch the video of the interview at this link. It was a pretty straight-forward interview, but nevertheless, nice to see Gates talking reaffirming what the technology industry at large believes in. And Windows 8, according to Bill, sets up a base for Redmond to build upon.
All Comments
Who needs MS Office when the iPad has Apple’s iWorks – Pages, Numbers, and Keynotes? I suppose Mr. Gates doesn’t go shopping much, because a lot of stores do sell keyboards for the iPad. He is so disillusioned!