Newsmaker: Gates sees big dollars in little devices

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solid-state storage or, eventually disk-based storage. We took our Windows Media format and said let's make it available and very inexpensive. We hope that makes the music scenario grow up on the phone. We did license that to Nokia and others. Likewise, the whole scenario of mail on the phone is one we think has also been a little complex.

You have the IM group having to deal with Research In Motion, and obviously they are a competitor to Windows Mobile in doing Exchange on mobile devices. Similarly, PalmOne right now runs the rival Palm operating system, but Microsoft has crafted a deal so they can run your ActiveSync technology. It seems like a lot of different strategies.
Gates: Everything we do along these lines, certainly I'm involved in making sure we are coherent in how we do those things. Take our media formats, we've been licensing those to everyone in sight. Having some of the key technologies be available elsewhere drives those scenarios to critical mass. What the Windows Mobile team does then is make sure they've got the best implementation. I can say with great confidence, even where we're licensing out all that technology very inexpensively, our share within this industry is going to grow quite significantly.

You've talked about a willingness to partner with competitors where you can to drive the industry. Is there more room for partnership with Linux vendors? I understand that Steve Ballmer met with Matthew Szulik at the end of March. I'm curious if that relationship is evolving.
Gates: We're always talking to people about standards, like Web services standards or how we get systems to work better through interoperability. I don't think you can say anything about the open-source community as a whole because there are so many different players in there with so many different products. There is nothing monolithic about chaos. There is more variety of everything. There are some of those players that are looking at commercial type revenues. We'll certainly spend time with those people to see what we have in common and what we can do for customers together. I wouldn't say that there is some big new development.

As the commercial players in the Linux world evolve, it seems they become a competitor, like you mentioned Nokia has in the cell phone space.
Gates: That's right, the people who do commercial stuff, we'll be in touch with all those people and have an ongoing dialogue, as well as competing with them in the market place.  

More Newsmakers

[Stating]

Rich, Richer, Richest

Read any Gates speech and he will use the word "rich" at least once. Must be a Freudian thing.

"The richness of software on mobile devices is just at the beginning. We see certainly a decade's worth of work, where mobile devices can get richer and richer."

[Earl Benser]

Keep MS out of my cell phone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is nothing that MS has to offer that I want to see on my cell
phone. And what MS does have to offer could easily turn out to be
a worse job of programming than Windows Whatever.

Just give me a cell phone that can communicate. I already have
other devices for the mickey mouse phone functions MS proposes.

[Ted Dyck]

Microsoft is the answer

I live and work in the IT world and have been carrying the Audiovox 6600. This windows mobile device blows the socks off that insignificant problem laden Treo. Trust Bill Gates to take a piece of crap and make it better.

[Terrance Laird]

More Like domination

Microsoft likes to say that they would contribute to all devices
where software makes a difference. More like they try to dominate
every device where software makes the difference. Am I the only
person who does not want my windows based washing machine to
get a virus?

[bob blob]

scary, yes. but a logical move nonetheless.

while it may be scary to imagine microsoft software on every digital device available, it still makes sense from a business point of view. they want to maintain growth, and to do that, must seek new markets to enter. and with their huge bankroll, they are able to take the risks to enter those markets.