Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, thinks that the software giant could have been the leading company in the mobile technology business and easily raced ahead of Google if it was not engaged in lengthy anti-trust battles with the United States government. While speaking at a forum in Washington on Monday, Bill Gates said that Microsoft was fully equipped with the process of making operating systems.
"We were in the field of doing operating systems for personal computers. We knew that mobile phones would be very popular," he said. Gates, who left Microsoft's day-to-day management a decade ago, said that Microsoft could not capitalise on the skill set it had in terms of proving the operating system for mobiles like Google came up with Android.
Gates said that when he was heading the operations at Microsoft, which was the leading software firm globally, he got distracted in fighting the legal battles, a mistake which he regrets now.
"We missed being the dominant mobile operating system by a very tiny amount. We were distracted during our anti-trust trial. We didn't assign the best people to do the work," he added.
Gates was all praises for Microsoft Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Satya Nadella for leading the company towards being the most valuable firm globally worth $1trillion. The world's second richest man, who has carved a name for himself due to his various philanthropic works and charity organisations, said that the credit is also due to Jeff Bezos, the Amazon chief and the world's richest man.
Gates said that even Google made the mistake of letting Amazon take a giant leap with its cloud computing services, which has transformed the technology completely. "It is a surprise and it's a huge credit to (Amazon CEO) Jeff Bezos and his team that they got out in front and with AWS did the best cloud product," he quipped.
On a lighter note, Gates said that he is not disturbed by Jef Bezos having overtaken him as the on the billionaire's index as the world's wealthiest man."The fact that I am still among the top 10 in the list testifies that I have not all my wealth away," he said.
Gates currently spends only one-sixth of his time at Microsoft and is busy with the philanthropy and the work at an energy conservation fund, dedicated to the cause of climate change and decreased fuel emissions.
