Amaya Toman The arrival of the iPad aroused enthusiasm among the general public. The world was captivated by a simple, elegant looking tablet with a touch screen and great features. But there were exceptions - one of them was none other than Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, who simply shrugged his shoulders at the iPad.
"There's nothing on the iPad that I look at and say, 'Oh, I wish Microsoft would do this,'" said Bill Gates when he debated Apple's new tablet on February 11, 2010. With a comment lacking any major excitement, Bill Gates arrived just two weeks after Steve Jobs publicly introduced the iPad to the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KN-5zmvjAo
At the time he was reviewing the iPad, Bill Gates was more concerned with philanthropy at the expense of technology. At that time, he had not held the post of CEO for ten years. Nevertheless, reporter Brent Schlender, who among other things also moderated the first ever joint interview between Jobs and Gates, asked him about the latest "must have gadget" from Apple.
In the past, Bill Gates was also interested in the development and production of tablets - in 2001, his company produced the Microsoft Tablet PC line, which was a concept of "mobile computers" with an additional keyboard and stylus, but in the end it was not very successful.
"You know, I'm a big fan of touch control and digital reading, but I still think that the mainstream in this direction will be more a combination of voice, pen and a real keyboard - in other words, a netbook," Gates was heard to say at the time. "It's not like I'm sitting here feeling the same way I did when the iPhone came out and I was like, 'My God, Microsoft didn't aim high enough.' It's a nice reader, but there's just nothing on the iPad that I look at and think, 'Oh, I wish Microsoft would do this'."
Militant supporters of the apple company and its products understandably immediately condemned Bill Gates' statements. For understandable reasons, it is not good to see the iPad as a mere "reader" - proof of its capabilities is the record speed with which the apple tablet became the best-selling new product from Apple. But it is useless to look for any deep meaning behind Gates' words. In short, Gates just expressed his opinion and was exceptionally wrong in predicting the (failure) success of the tablet. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmers made a similar mistake when he once almost laughed at the iPhone.
And in a way, Bill Gates was right when he passed his judgment on the iPad - despite the relative progress, Apple still had a long way to go in trying to bring its successful tablet to true perfection.
