Gates said that the anti-monopoly case dragged the legs and let Windows give way to Android in the PC market.
Editor’s note: This article is from “Tencent Technology”, Tencent Technology Review / Cheng Hao, authorized to reprint.
Today, the world’s two major monopoly smartphone operating systems are Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. In addition to its own Android distribution system, Google also provides free and open source to smartphone manufacturers around the world. This has led Android to occupy nearly 90% of the global market share and gain the dominance of Windows in the personal computer market.
It is well known that in the era of smartphones, Microsoft’s Windows operating system has suffered a terrible failure. Today, Microsoft is building its own “mobile priority cloud priority” strategy on Android and iOS platforms. However, according to the latest news from foreign media, on November 6, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that if the US Department of Justice filed an anti-monopoly lawsuit against Microsoft, Windows could have become the world’s dominant mobile operating system. .
According to foreign media reports, “There is no doubt that antitrust lawsuits are not good for Microsoft. We should have been more focused on creating smartphone operating systems. Therefore, if there is no antitrust lawsuit, you (participants today) will use Windows. Mobile operating system,” Gates said at a conference hosted by a well-known American media.
The Gates comment provides another “possible” reality. Today, Microsoft still dominates other areas of software such as PC operating systems and commercial office software, but in the smart phone space, Microsoft Windows has failed.
Today, the world’s two major monopoly smartphone operating systems are Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. In addition to its own Android distribution system, Google also provides free and open source to smartphone manufacturers around the world. This has led Android to occupy nearly 90% of the global market share and gain the dominance of Windows in the personal computer market. iOS is Apple’s exclusive system, which accounts for 10%.
Foreign media pointed out that Gates’s statement also indicated that the government’s major anti-monopoly cases against other large technology companies today may have a negative impact on the market.
In the third quarter of this year, Facebook became the object of antitrust investigations and inquiries by the US House of Representatives, the State Attorney General’s Consortium, and the Justice Department. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, began receiving civil requests from the Department of Justice for antitrust investigations. The Supreme Court said earlier this year that Apple mobile phone users could file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple on the app store commission. According to reports, in July this year, the EU will conduct an antitrust investigation against Amazon.
Undoubtedly, public opinion has set off a call for supervision and anti-monopoly investigations by technology giants, both in the United States and around the world. The outside world believes that technology giants have too much influence on the economy and society, and even bring Side effects such as hindering market competition and the proliferation of fake news and information.
“Oh, we (the mobile operating system) are a little bit more successful,” Gates said of Microsoft’s mistakes in the mobile operating system. “I was just too distracted. Because of distraction, I got things done.” Hey.”
Gates recalled that Microsoft released a new version of the Windows mobile operating system three months later, and that it was not able to be used in a new mobile phone released by Motorola.
Earlier this year, Gates said that his biggest mistake during Microsoft was that he didn’t make Windows systems the dominant smartphone operating system.
“Now no one has ever heard of Windows Mobile, but there are hundreds of billionaires here,” Gates said at the venue that day.
Gates also said that if it were not because of the US government antitrust case that began in 1998, he would not retire immediately.
Gates founded Microsoft in 1975 with Paul Allen, then resigned as CEO in 2000, allowing Steve Ballmer to take power when the antitrust lawsuit reached its peak.
He said that early retirement may be good for him because he started working more with his wife Melinda on the non-profit “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation”, where he is the co-chairman of the foundation and trustee.
“There is no place in my life that allows me to complain, because basically 99% of things are going very well,” he said.
Recently, US Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren expressed his desire to split tech giants such as Amazon, Facebook and Google. The outside world also asked Facebook to spin off the acquired Instagram and WhatsApp services.
Gates said: “I don’t think Microsoft should be disintegrated. I am against this plan. I don’t want anyone to do this.” Gates said he didn’t talk to Warren. “I don’t know how open she is.” I don’t know if she is willing to sit with a rich man.Start. Said Gates.
With the defeat in the mobile operating system market, during the CEO of Ballmer, Microsoft invested heavily in the acquisition of Nokia’s smartphone mobile phone business, and launched a large number of Windows Mobile systems. Smartphone phones have even gained a market share of one or two percent in some countries.
However, due to the dominance of Android and iOS operating systems, and many third-party software developers or Internet companies are not willing to develop APP versions for Windows Mobile, which has a limited user size, Microsoft’s operating system and smartphone users are gradually shrinking. Eventually forced to completely withdraw from this field.
In the past few years, Nadella has led Microsoft to migrate to Android and iOS, and almost all major software products have launched Android and iOS versions.
At a conference last year, Microsoft CEO Nadella also showed off his own Android phone, which installed a wide range of Microsoft applications, such as Outlook, Yammer, LinkedIn and so on. Nadella said that Android phones are the best landing device for Microsoft software services.
Not long ago, Microsoft introduced an innovative hardware product “dual-screen notebook” (also known as the dual-screen phone in the media). This device does not use Windows 10 system, but is equipped with Microsoft customized Android operation. system.
It is worth mentioning that Microsoft was under tremendous anti-monopoly pressure in the United States and the European Union. The outside world demanded that Microsoft be spun off to prevent competitors from being squeezed through Windows software bundles. Fortunately, with Clinton as the United States President, Microsoft has escaped the fate of being “dismembered.”