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Bill Gates Prefers 'More Open Nature' of Android, Regrets Microsoft's Missing Phone Market (pcmag.com) 81

Posted by EditorDavid from the spilt-milk dept.
Bill Gates "prefers the more open nature of the Android ecosystem, as it's more 'flexible' about how software interfaces with the OS," reports PC Magazine, citing remarks Gates made on Clubhouse to CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin: "I actually use an Android phone," Gates told Sorkin. "Because I want to keep track of everything, I'll often play around with iPhones, but the one I carry around happens to be Android. Some of the Android manufacturers pre-install Microsoft software in a way that makes it easy for me. They're more flexible about how the software connects up with the operating system. So that's what I ended up getting used to. You know, a lot of my friends have iPhone so there's no purity."

In 2019, Gates admitted the way he handled Microsoft's own mobile phone division was his "greatest mistake." Microsoft ended up letting Google transform Android into the only true rival for iPhone. Microsoft missed out on a $400 billion market at the time, something Gates deeply regrets. In 2017, however, he went ahead and adopted an Android phone.

During the interview, Davidson indicated that an Android version of Clubhouse could be on its way. He called it a "top feature," which could mean the iPhone Clubhouse could soon dissipate.
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Bill Gates Prefers 'More Open Nature' of Android, Regrets Microsoft's Missing Phone Market More

Bill Gates Prefers 'More Open Nature' of Android, Regrets Microsoft's Missing Phone Market

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  • Sure. (Score:4, Funny)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Sunday February 28, 2021 @06:39PM (#61109576)
    >Gates admitted the way he handled Microsoft's own mobile phone division was his "greatest mistake."

    No, that would be Bob and "Clippy." But his wife was marketing manager for Bob, so he's probably wise to not mention it.
    • There are MANY things Bill Gates has done that were mistakes, in my opinion.

      Bill Gates likes being in the news. He doesn't say much that is interesting to me.

      Microsoft's poor management, 2 examples that I've mentioned before:

      August 4, 2015: Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. [networkworld.com] "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC."

      October 5, 2019: Multiple Problems Reported With New Windows 10 Updates [forbes.com].
      • Bill for all he has done for tech and now as a philanthropist. He is petty as fuck. Pretty sure he is using Android because he has it for Apple. Was Microsoft ever an âoeopenâ operating system? We now found out that he shorted Tesla despite being big on saving the environment. He probably shorted Tesla because he sees Elon competing with him as the because tech visionary. Wow, so petty. But I guess this pettiest was why he did so well with Microsoft.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by beuges ( 613130 )

          It's more likely that he shorted Tesla because Elon himself has repeatedly said that TSLA is overvalued. Elon's hyped BTC and then days later says something like 'yeah but BTC is pretty overvalued lol'. It seems quite prudent that any savvy investor would short anything that Elon hypes.

          MS has gone all-in on Android because they can integrate in ways that Apple does not allow. If Apple allowed the same level of customization that Android does, they'd integrate just as deeply with iPhones.

          • They made many, many mistakes (Score:4, Interesting)

            by martynhare ( 7125343 ) on Monday March 01, 2021 @03:56AM (#61110488)
            They went all in on Android because they gave up too early on Windows Phone and figured adding APK compatibility to Windows would be a way to save themselves from irrelevance. Just like every other mistake they made post Windows 8.0. Rather than going all in on Skype and adding business features to it, they went and rebranded Lync, then did a 180 and made Teams, which is technically speaking one of the worst call/messaging platforms available. During all this, they decided rather than making one decent MS Office solution for mobile that they would instead diversify and make three terrible codebases instead off a minimal common core. In doing so, they killed a major reason for people to buy Windows Phone over the competition.

            Now what do they have? Poor quality Android support, poor quality iOS support, schools picking GSuite over Office 365 (despite both being free) and a bent towards adopting everybody else’s frameworks rather than using the powerful, RAM-efficient and vastly more mature Win32 APIs. It is a massive fall from grace to say the least.
            • MOD PARENT UP for the good short list of typical Microsoft management issues.

              The culture and kind of management of Bill Gates is still the culture and kind of management of Microsoft: An inability to think deeply. A lack of social ability that prevents Microsoft people from knowing what the world wants and needs. In the Bill Gates and Microsoft culture, it is okay to be abusive toward customers.

              In appearances in recent late night talk shows, Bill Gates has shown a lack of depth in his understanding.

    • Re:Sure. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bug_hunter ( 32923 ) on Sunday February 28, 2021 @08:01PM (#61109756)

      I mean Bob and Clippy are the funniest mistakes - but the money wasted on them is completely miniscule compared to the amount of revenue Microsoft would have gotten if it ended up as one of the big mobile phone players.

    • The major problem with the Microsoft phones was the API where you as a developer encountered many cases of missing implementation of the API even though the call could be done. So the application did build and executed without crashing but the desired result never occurred.
      The light was on but nobody home effect for many calls. No wonder that Microsoft missed the train when it was hard to make good bleeding edge apps.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Zehsi ( 5630632 )
        not really. The phone was nice, the OS was ok. It just as with all markets first comes takes it all. Google made a free OS and only that could compete with iphones. Also most americans I know use iphones.

        • Re: Sure. (Score:4, Informative)

          by mobby_6kl ( 668092 ) on Monday March 01, 2021 @05:58AM (#61110698)

          It just as with all markets first comes takes it all. Google made a free OS and only that could compete with iphones. Also most americans I know use iphones.

          The thing is, they were first! Out of the current players, MS had a strong presence before the Apple or Google even thought about making a phone. It was outdated and losing ground so they did what many here would advocate - drop compatibility and do things "properly". Of course the nice new platform with no backward compatibility and no native apps failed to take off.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

          The OS was just barely OK from a developer perspective, you had to go through some special coding to do what should have been in the API from the beginning. That made it quite cumbersome to make some apps. Trust me, I almost gave up on that.

      • It was uncharted territory after all. I for one was looking forward to buying a windows phone. I think the problem of creating a whole new mobile OS or just forking Android was worth supporting . It would have been a huge undertaking with the way telco regulations make availability upstream and downstream all important.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

          Well, Microsoft started from Windows CE when they started their phone stuff and there were a number of Windows CE devices around before the phones came out.

    • It really wasn't that big of a mistake. The product did bomb, but there were a lot of lessons learned from the experience. Bob like elements were around until Windows Vista/7 came out, and stopped trying to make Windows, approachable, to just straight to business OS. While a lot of this Bob elements like Clippy annoyed the heck out of professionals. They did succeed in making the PC usable for home users, by the early 2000's enough people are proficient at using windows that these elements were no longer

    • nokia.
      microsoft did have a chance at the phone industry.
      and still does.
      but microsoft ignored allowing small phones apps.
      because.
      lets face it.
      they were microsoft.
      there is no love lost with them

  • Windows Phone (Score:3, Interesting)

    by joshuark ( 6549270 ) on Sunday February 28, 2021 @06:45PM (#61109592)

    I saw a video of Microsoft doing a funeral for the iPhone which seems prescient of what happened to the Windows phone.

    But surprise, the Windows phone with actual competition got nowhere...and Microsoft couldn't shove Windows down a consumer's throat or force phone makers to bundle it with ever phone. The Zune was supposed to be the end of the iPod as well.

    Regrets it...yeah regrets for a monopolist. Probably the same thing Rockefeller said when he missed out on the oil fields in Texas.

    JoshK

  • If someone comes up with an installable OS (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TheNameOfNick ( 7286618 ) on Sunday February 28, 2021 @07:10PM (#61109638)

    the phone market is still up for grabs. Make it so I can buy a cheap phone from China, install a clean OS on it* and everything works. Push standards where necessary. Microsoft didn't get the PC market by selling great PCs. Separate hardware and software.

    *) I'm not talking about downloading some firmware package handcrafted for that device. I want a generic installer.

    • I think you are asking for an open source phone. If not, you should be. Not all open source perhaps, but open source from the security hypervisor through to the API's the apps use is the only way to ensure some corporate hasn't sold out to some state security apparatus. That's actually harsh on the corporate's - it's like not Huawei can resist the Chinese government, or a company with an Australia presence can resist their Assistance and Access bill. Not that they always actively resist of course - AT&T bent over and took it like a true sycophant.

      With open source's complete transparency, audit trails proving who is responsible for what, anonymity over who is running what software and eyeballs make the spy agencies favoured modulus (operandi forced coercion hidden by gag orders), impossible.

      The only problem is, while it's probable Gates is not adverse to the idea, the one advantage he has over most of us (billions at his disposal) is not a lot of help when it comes to open source. It's one of the few things that mostly immune to money. That''s also want makes it immune to government control. So it comes down to the people who want it to happen doing the work.

      • I think you are asking for an open source phone. If not, you should be....open source. It's one of the few things that mostly immune to money. That''s also want makes it immune to government control. So it comes down to the people who want it to happen doing the work.

        I don't think Open Source is necessarily the answer here. Sure, I'm not complaining - I run an AOSP ROM on my phone as it is. I just think there's an intermediate to be had...

        I have a PC. That PC, like basically every other x86 PC, has a UEFI or a BIOS, and a sufficiently-standard hardware layout that I can install Windows 10...or Windows Server...or any of 1,001 Linux distros...or a type-1 hypervisor like VMWare...or FreeBSD...or OpenIndiana....or...or...Point is, I don't have the source code for my UEFI o

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ras ( 84108 )

          The nightmare scenario I'm trying to defend against is citizen of the world who expects his phone to provide complete privacy when he wants it running a Huawei manufactured phone, under the assumption Huawei will do *anything* the Chinese government asks of them. Huawei says they would do nothing of a sort of course but we, or at least I don't have to imagine the scenario as I am a Australian, so I'm already living in a place that has demanded every company do what Huawei says they wouldn't dream of doing.

      • There are some open source phones I've been keeping watch over. PinePhone. Librem Purism. I haven't taken the plunge yet and I probably won't until there is good solution for key Android apps I use. I'm willing to part with a lot of applications, but some are key.

        Outlook - I get my work email via outlook, Microsoft Authenticator...
        Signal - For messaging

        The rest of my apps, I can deal with not having. I doubt they will get native application development, but hopefully a solid emulator or VM can work.

      • Ironically, Pixel is open enough that you can easily put your own OS on it and lock it down yourself. This is what GrapheneOS does, for example.

        And about the ROM part... That's more a question of the OS. You're free to build an OS that can install from a USB flash drive.

    • the phone market is still up for grabs. Make it so I can buy a cheap phone from China, install a clean OS on it* and everything works.

      Are you sure? A new OS would have no apps, and no app developers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ksevio ( 865461 )

      The problem is each phone has basically different hardware which means they need different drivers and different feature sets or the OS won't function very well. To include it all would make it somewhat bloated, and you'd still need different versions for different devices

    • I am shocked that no one has made a competitive third OS in a market which sells billions! I think Huawei has a new OS,but it will be stupid to use that

      • The difficulty lies in making it profitable. Google has its advertising revenues, and their existing businesses benefit from Android. Google could afford to run Android itself at a loss. Apple sells iPhones. I donâ(TM)t see a new OS getting critical mass without a new product category emerging thatâ(TM)d justify the switch.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Gimric ( 110667 )

      the phone market is still up for grabs. Make it so I can buy a cheap phone from China, install a clean OS on it* and everything works. Push standards where necessary. Microsoft didn't get the PC market by selling great PCs. Separate hardware and software.

      *) I'm not talking about downloading some firmware package handcrafted for that device. I want a generic installer.

      No, Microsoft was handed the PC market by IBM. I don't think anyone was going to make the same mistake in mobile.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      You will never get away from binary blob drivers, unfortunately. The combination of trade secrets, regulatory requirements and the tiny number of people who actually care about it all add up to make that a fantasy, especially for radios like cellular modems and wifi.

      • Windows has binary blob drivers. I can install Windows on any PC I want. I do not have to get the OS from the maker of the PC. In fact I can make my own PC and install Windows on it. I am asking for an installable phone OS that is separate from the hardware, not an open source utopia. One step at a time.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          I can install Windows on any PC I want.

          Then please install the latest Windows 10 on my four year old laptop. When automatic updates tries it, or when I try it manually, the laptop crashes hard and has to be set back to a previous restore point before it can boot..

    • You don't understand now cell phones work and you are forgetting that Android was supposed to be something similar to this. I remember my first Android phone and hearing how I could just keep upgrading the OS instead of buying a new phone. It couldn't run the current versions of Android due to bloat. .

      Microsoft didn't get the PC market by selling great PCs. Separate hardware and software.

      Correct. They let others make the hardware and provided the software. That is what Android is was all about, a marketable OS for cell phones.

      What you want is all nice and good and shit but reality is that t

  • Let's say, for a moment, that you're diagnosed with a deadly and incurable disease, and you have only a few weeks to live.

    Now, let's say that some science lab, financed entirely by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, comes up with the cure for that disease.

    Would you take it ?

    • A person can hate someone and still accept their help to survive.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What the hell kind of hypothetical is that? You wanna play that game? Let's say Dr. Mengele had come up with a cure for hemorrhoids, would you take it? Or do you want actual true examples? Nitrogen fertilizer, which saved billions from starvation, was made possible because of Fritz Haber .. who also invented and advocated using gas and chemical weapons. Volkswagen was developed by the Third Reiich, you wouldn't ride in one? There were actual Natsis such as Arthur Rudolph who developed the US space program a

    • What if unicorns flew out of Bill Gate's ass and were used to feed all the world's hungry? That isn't happening either, so stop with the stupid hypothetical situations. The hate for Gates can continue with good conscience.

    • Of course I would. But that doesn't mean I like the idea of a world where people get mega-rich in questionably ethical ways, where they end up with so much money that they're capable of doing the kinds of things that governments normally do, and then society's priorities end up being shaped by the casual opinions of those benevolent multi-billionaires. They might or mightn't have welfare of the population in mind, and if they have a whim of incompetence without process to vet themselves against expertise

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday February 28, 2021 @07:44PM (#61109714)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Of course he wouldn't cite the antitrust issues he was involved in as his greatest mistake. Know why? Because he doesn't see them as a mistake, they ultimately were profitable.

      No, it's because he won that battle.

  • And the hardware, don't get me started!

  • Good for him (Score:3)

    by Krishnoid ( 984597 ) on Sunday February 28, 2021 @07:55PM (#61109746) Journal

    Bill Gates "prefers the more open nature of the Android ecosystem, as it's more 'flexible' about how software interfaces with the OS,

    I'm sure he's happy with that kind of freedom and flexibility. If only he offered that same kind of freedom and flexibilty to everyone who had to code for Windows.

    But I guess now that he's a retired billionaire that won't pay to hire someone to take calls for him, I'm glad he's opining on the proper OS for a phone, rather than actually taking that perspective and some of the change in his couch to fund projects to undo what Microsoft did to the computing landscape [cnn.com] while they were the big/only name around.

  • "Purity"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Sunday February 28, 2021 @08:11PM (#61109782) Journal

    You know, a lot of my friends have iPhone so there's no purity.

    What he's saying is there is no monopoly. It's rather insightful into his mindset that he refers to a market with healthy competition as being impure. The verbiage he used has negative connotations towards that healthy market. He really does think that Microsoft did the world a favor by (often illegally) dominating and holding a monopoly on an entire computing paradigm.

  • What about the shit that is windows? I am talking about x86 windows. No regret for that? Normalizing the release of buggy software? No regret about that? What the hell.

  • Dude gets the DOS gig with IBM cause his mommy "knew" some executive at @IBM. Then has the wherewithal to capitalize on the PC market, much to IBM's chagrin. Continues to be a hardheaded dimwit ALL through the 80's & 90's and FINALLY with Windows XP they say, OMG we're still in business somehow, MAYBE its time to make an OS that doesn't suck THAT bad, like because they found the floor with OS garbage and ME. TOTALLY screws the pooch when Apple launches the first Iphone, because they were still shell sho

  • mindset (Score:3)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Monday March 01, 2021 @01:12AM (#61110252) Homepage Journal

    Gates admitted the way he handled Microsoft's own mobile phone division was his "greatest mistake."

    Note that his "mistake" refers to a missed business opportunity for his company.

    Not monopolistic business practices, not damage done to the IT world through predatory tactics, not screwing over countless competitors, not buying out interesting tech companies only to bury them, not lying and cheating to get ahead, not using his foundation to crowd out NGOs trying to help people and treating them like competitors instead of allies, not funneling donations to companies he owns stocks in through said foundation, none of those or many other things.

    It's clear that this is still the Gates we all know and hate. A ruthless business man who sees everything through the lens of "can I dominate that?"

    • I would have guessed his greatest regret was selling his soul to the devil.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tom ( 822 )

        He's not the type to regret that.

        He'd regret his inability to corner the soul market and drive up prices before signing the deal.

        • Bill thinks he can run the world but as these things often do, it will undoubtedly result in a downfall. He'll have to spend the rest of eternity on a couch in Hell next to Steve Ballmer watching NBA games.

  • Miss out? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by r2kordmaa ( 1163933 ) on Monday March 01, 2021 @02:58AM (#61110414)
    Not only did MS miss out and mess up, they also murdered Nokia in the process.

  • Usually they prefer iPhones, because they are easier to use.

  • well he should thank himself for letting the company at the right moment at the hands of the grand visionary Steve Ballmer!

  • This is like the fourth or fifth "Bill Gates says something about something he's absolutely not an expert of" article in a very short time, and "Bill Gates says something about Bitcoin" is a few articles up. What's wrong with you?
  • Is this the same Clubhouse social media that wanted to do the giant sucking sound off of your entire Contact address book? Like LinkedIn and Yahoo! did?

  • I'm sure Microsoft, the company Gates cofounded, selling Android phones has nothing at all to do with his "preference".

  • Windows CE 6 - September 2006
    Windows Phone 7 - October 21, 2010
    Windows Phone 7.5 - 2011
    Windows Phone 8 - October 29, 2012
    Windows Mobile 10 - January 21, 2015

    There were other releases, but I just put of the version of Windows people started really writing apps for and then were supposed to rewrite them from scratch.
    Sometimes an app would kind of work on the next version of the OS. Most of the time you could not update your phone OS.
    Microsoft said with 7 that they were creating the future of the API

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