Bill Gates Paraphrases Mark Twain’s “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”

 

It seems to us that Microsoft is a favorite target of many in the media and the software industry. I think our company was predicted to go out of business long ago, early in the history of personal computing.

Nonetheless, we’re still here and continuing to grow, despite the naysayers. A recent contributor to “Seeking Alpha” summarized this nicely in his article, “If you think Microsoft is dying, you need a reality check.” In the article, author Gregory Vousvounis addresses 9 of the current “Microsoft is doomed” scenarios, and I encourage you to read Vousvounis’ take on how the assertions don’t measure up. We most enjoyed his last point:

In a recent interview (watch after the 44:15 mark) Bill Gates talks about Microsoft and reminds people that Microsoft is a software company. He specifically said in reference to Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Samsung:

"[...] none of them understands software that deals with complex information like Microsoft does."

He also emphasized that the "magic of the future" lies in services like visual and speech recognition and other cloud based services that are software-centric and play on Microsoft's strengths. He specifically described a future when we will do almost everything in the cloud. In that future the key elements are software and user interface, where he believes Microsoft has a great advantage over the competition.

Microsoft is a great company because it keeps itself looking forward. In the utility context, the cloud is the most important innovating and capability-enhancing technology this industry has ever seen. We have our eye on the cloud, for you, no matter what you hear among the chattering class. And we are the best at what we can do for you in that area.

So to paraphrase the famous American writer Mark Twain, reports of Microsoft’s demise are greatly exaggerated. – Jon C. Arnold