The Biggest Mistake Bill Gates Ever Made May Be To Lose The Mobile Market To Android

All of us must have some regrets in our daily life, and as one of the wealthiest men in the world, Bill Gates is not an exception.

In an interview with the venture capital company Village Global, Bill Gates shared one of the biggest mistakes during his career, which related to Microsoft/Window mobile. He regretted not turning it into the powerful operating system to compete with iOS from Apple.

He said, “In the software world, particularly for platforms, these are winner-take-all markets. So the greatest mistake ever is whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft to not be what Android is. That is, Android is the standard non-Apple phone platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win.”

And added, “It really is winner take all. If you’re there with half as many apps or 90 percent as many apps, you’re on your way to complete doom. There’s room for exactly one non-Apple operating system and what’s that worth? $400 billion that would be transferred from company G to company M.”

A Fight With Google

14 years ago, in 2005, Google bought Android for 50 million dollars. In the beginning, the California-based company focused on beating any product manufactured by Microsoft.

Eric Schmidt, who was the CEO of Google at the time, has said his company didn’t hope that the mobile strategy of Bill Gates’s company would gain success. It is completely easy to understand for anyone to beat out his rivals.

At present, Android wins over Microsoft. However, in the past, Microsoft didn’t believe in the future of 100% touch-based handsets.

The World Without Keyboard

The ex CEO of Microsoft Steve Ballmer made a famous statement saying that:

At the time, Steve Ballmer laughed at iPhone and its manufacturer.

It may be such the attitude and many other reasons that make Microsoft unable to develop enough good mobile software for its own products and catch up with the severe race of touch handsets.

In December last year, Bill Gates and his tech company decided to give up Microsoft Mobile – one of the first efforts to approach the mobile software market and relaunch the project with a new name Windows Phone.

Unluckily, the company’s project never seemed to show any success, and even the software isn’t supported anymore. In spite of its big mistake, Microsoft has kept focusing on the development of cloud business.

Also in the interview, Bill Gates said,

He further emphasized, “If we had gotten that one right, we would be the leading company, but oh well.”

And it is clear that Microsoft has earned a lot of money from its existing products.

Back to April 2019, the company reported that it gained revenue of 30.6 billion dollars and the net income of 8.8 billion dollars in the Quarter 3 of last year. There is a YOY increase of 14 percent and 19 percent in its revenue and net income, respectively.

Both Microsoft Office and Cloud are the major contributors to the company’s revenue. In addition, Surface, Windows, and Xbox also ensure the firm results for the company.