zerodamage

"Hardware costs will fall sharply within a decade to the point where widespread computing with speech and handwriting won't be limited by expensive technology, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said on Monday. "Ten years out, in terms of actual hardware costs you can almost think of hardware as being free -- I'm not saying it will be absolutely free -- but in terms of the power of the servers, the power of the network will not be a limiting factor," Gates said, referring to networked computers and advances in the speed of the Internet."

Full Article: Reuters

The_Neon_Cowboy

bill gates is full of it

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nForcer

He's also the wealthiest man in the world, keep in mind. He MUST be doing something right.

The_Neon_Cowboy

keep in mind he's may be "one" the richest men in the the us mabe, but the world, there are far richer people....

also keep in mind his entire start up was based on a few things

selling software OS he did not have
after selling IBM on it Finding and buying an OS for like $20
thats right the first ever os put out by ms was bought!
tricking and working with apple and stealing thier stuff/ideas then useing them

lieing/stealing his way to the top

go watch the movie the "pirates of silicon vally" and then come back

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ivan300

didnt he allso say the 64k of ram is enouh for any1. actually i hope this is true because i can upgrade weekly

SJae

Actually, he is the wealthiest person on planet earth.

dj_stick

but is it all worth it, the extravagant price on every piece of microsoft software, licensing and who knows what else
that's where the money comes from

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HawK

Actualy it was: "512k should be enough for anyone, anytime"
he also didn't believe the internet would become very popular..

The_Neon_Cowboy

he is not dude there are people with more $$$ i have been told...

not to mention ones 'net worth and the money the acually have are two totally diffrent things


I'm just going by a specail onthe rishest me in world a saw a couple years back, I thinkit was african or middles eastern royallty that had more $$$


but i did find this......


. William Gates III -- $60 billion
Currently the world's richest man, at one point, Gates' fortune was creeping towards the $100 billion mark. Then, as we all know, the DOJ's Anti-trust case, as well as an overall meltdown in the high-technology market, hurt the Harvard dropout. Today, with a $60 billion fortune, Gates is both hated and loved. Unlike many, he has promised to contribute over 90% of his wealth to charities when the big guy calls his number. We hope this will not be anytime soon, as he and his wife Melinda French Gates run the world's largest philanthropic association

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Dom

There used to be people richer than him, but not any longer, he is indeed the worth the most on paper. If there are richer, then do some research and find them.

The_Neon_Cowboy

i edited my above post.....

also you should notice one thing CASH in hand and net worth are two totally different things
one could be richer then anther but live like a poper becouse thie money is all tied up

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Dom

Yes, they are two different things, but that's not the point, riches is measured by net.

Vampyromaniac

http://www.forbes.com/maserati/billi...ill04land.html

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The_Neon_Cowboy

also he shouln't be giveing his mony to charity, he is no doubt he the rishest thief

he should be sending some to apple for "windows" realaed stuff they blantany and quite sneakaly stole from them .. and was given rights considering the were helping devople stuff for apple a mix of apple/microsoft enganeers then they took the ideas that apple already had and were working on at the time with ms/ desmonstated for ms and then ms boxed it up a slaped "windows" on the box...

Belive it or of not if it wasnt for gates we'd most likely all be running mostly mac's, if it wasn't for apple we most likely won't of had a sucessfull "windows" os

people who haven't go see that movie and i will give you the over gist or what bill did to make his millions

"not to mention the built in stock options a buch of money (millions) handed to him as he had and gets every year"


not to meantion he had last year sold a "large chunk" of microsoft stock, and bug LINUX stock!!! tell what confidence he has in his company lol

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The_Neon_Cowboy

..........................


rofl that intersting look at yahoo stocks http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=MSFT looks a bill gates sell orders for microsoft selling millions of shares at a time!

he has sold

like 30 million shares so far this year alone

........

wow for last year i lost count bill gates is a lean mean microsoft stock selling machine

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The_Neon_Cowboy

..........................


rofl that intersting look at yahoo stocks http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=MSFT looks a bill gates sell orders for microsoft selling millions of shares at a time!

he has sold

like 30 million shares so far this year alone

........

wow for last year i lost count bill gates is a lean mean microsoft stock selling machine


but he still owns GATES, WILLIAM H. III 1,139,436,063 shares 9-Feb-04


he is rich becouse his company stock options... a comany that would have never ever of made the mony or gain the worth it has with out the help of apple

i just wish apple could sue, but ms has releases and clouses protecting them from that, if apple could sue bill gates would have next to nothing about now..... thats kinda earks me not that i like mac but the crap he pulled

like i said most like 95% of billgates cash is "tied up" and would take a very long time to sell...
for eample if billgates tried to sell all his share to marrow the stock would tank and go below like a dallor.... so he can only sell it a little at a time or he can hurt the stock prices



apple wise imagine just imagine how well windows would have done with for example with out things like a mouse! or icons!

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BWX

I agree Gates is a thieving b**t*rd that took advantage of Wozniak from the start.. Wozniak basically invented the PC- But he though the hardware was going to be the "main" selling point- Gates thought the Software was going to be the main selling point.

The problem is that the software is nothing, it's just information that can be copied at will, the PC hardware is the only tangible part of a PC- it's the only part you can't just copy, you have to go buy it.

So of course Gates STILL wishes that the only VALUABLE part of a PC will be the software and that the hardware will be worthless.... He may think that if he (the richest man in the world) says something as ridiculous as this, that it may change people's views enough to change the future or something.. He is the richest moron in the world if he actually believes this..

Time is money- PC's (or servers or whatever) that are slow are worthless, faster PC's make more money for their owners, we are in the information age after all.. there will ALWAYS be faster PC's coming out next week/month/year and of course they will command top dollar..

M$'s only way to make money is to create a monopoly, stifle competition, and overprice the product- then after that, the only way to keep this cycle going is to render the overpriced, monopolized product useless and out of date in a very short time so that it can come full circle with the next batch of overpriced products...

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SJae

Did you guys--Neon and BWX--work for a company that came to ruin b/c of Microsoft? Why so angry???

Also, do you guys own Macs or do you run Linux on your hardware? If not Linux, perhaps some other type of OS???

From your above statements, you seem very disgruntled against Bill Gates and the company he works for. Wouldn't it be hypocritical if you guys were using Windows OS???

nForcer

But you are missing the point. NObody is perfect and he's been right more than he's been wrong. It is very easy, almost childish, to point out someone else's downsides. He's an extremely forward thinking individual and that talent has helped him a great deal. NOW, as for Microsoft's business ethics,tactics,whatever-you-want-to-call-them, thats another story

The_Neon_Cowboy

I run windows but behind the windows curtain is age old apple technology!!!

" Bill Gates and the company he works for. " you mean bill gates's company, bill gates is the founder and owns magority share i think...

as for alternat os'es ms works real hard to keep them down, it's ms's greatest fear is linux and the DOJ lol

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BWX

QUOTE
---Wouldn't it be hypocritical if you guys were using Windows OS???-----

Who says because I run windows that I support MS or have ever given them one red cent? No, it's not hypocritical. Gates runs a monopoly, and he just happened to get away with it long enough to become the richest man in history-- the fact that he is the richest man in the world proves that fact. He's doesn't deserve one dime from me. As soon as I install Windows I download a bunch of tweak (or hack) programs so I can run it the way I want, and the way Gates doesn't want me to. You can do allot with X-setup, like making MS messenger go away and stop interfering with IE and OE, take the Spyware out of Win Media player and the rest of Windows etc..

The fact that he bundled a media player/IM/browser/ etc, etc, etc, into the OS and was sneaky enough about it that the you couldn't install the OS without them and that other BETTER media players/ IM clients/ browsers/ email clients can't compete is also proof that he's a monopolistic bas****d. Like he doesn't have enough money already, he steals small companies technology and calls it his own. It's ridiculous, I will never admire someone just because they are rich- especially if they are sneaky and corrupt. There are good parts about windows too- but nothing an open source OS couldn't beat if given the chance, in fact I would say if there were more competition in the past 20 years that we would all be running much better, less expensive, more SECURE, more efficient, and more advanced OS's. Compatibility would have sorted itself out- it always does..

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zerodamage

Honestly, do not believe everything that is made into a movie. 99.9% of the time it is glorified or made up to make things more interesting than what they really are.

Xiphias

I can't see the internet reaching that sort of speeds needed to downloaded several hundred megabyte files within a couple of seconds in ten years.

Spyro124

Apart from the fact that he may have stolen the concept, he made the smart move and is very rich now, it's as easy as that, being jeleous over that is just a sore excuse, looks like the other guy wasn't as smart as bill back then. There is a dutch phrase that goes by: Better stolen good, then invented badly. (literaly translated)

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WaltC

I don't agree whatsoever... It was a long, long, long time after Apple started selling its point & click software idea of interfacing with a PC before "windows" was ever written by M$. In fact, Commodore started it with the Amiga long before M$, but after Apple--was Commodore also a thief? Steve Jobs says he got the idea from Xerox--does that make him a "thieving bastard"...? I don't think so. What you're saying is that it's M$'s fault that Apple kept its hardware proprietary and routinely sues anybody who even makes cases that merely look like Apple boxes, which is presently true even today, and that it's "immoral" that Gates decided to develop an operating system for the only free-market hardware standard there is--x86. That's just wrong, I think. Windows rode to ubiquity on the back of the x86-hardware platform, a platform market served literally by hundreds of hardware companies around the world for decades. There's only one source for Apple hardware--Apple. The difference in outcomes between the two companies is easily explainable on that basis alone.

The idea that a "point & click, windowing interface" is something that should "belong" to any company is much like saying that the first company that used a "cpu" inside a personal computer is the only one that should be allowed to do that today, and that all the other companies using cpus inside their boxes are "thieves." It's ridiculous, and it's like saying that all automobile manufacturers who use "tires" and "wheels" or "windows" and "doors" or "steering wheels" and "gas & brake pedals" are all "thieves" just because they didn't originally come up with the idea themselves. Things like that are so basic to the use and control of an automobile that nobody would ever make such a suggestion with a straight face. Likewise, "windowing, mouse-driven interfaces" are so basic to the use and control of personal computers that to say that a single company owns the right to such "look and feel" is the same as to say that only one automobile maker should own the rights to the "look & feel" of the "steering wheel," etc. It's nonsense, I think.


Software to personal computers is what gasoline is to personal automobiles. Please show me a single example of a successful computer hardware maker who makes personal computers for which there is no software.

Why would you think he believes this? What he's talking about is simply that the *cost to consumers* will fall as computer hardware becomes more and more ubiquitous. Isn't that exactly what's been happening for the last 15 years? I think it definitely is. Video cards and cpus are literally 100's-1,000's of times more powerful than they were 10 years ago, and cost 1/4-1/2 as much. Ditto ram. Hard drives have 100s-1000s of X the storage they had in the late 80's, and are 100's of times more reliable and faster today. My first hard drive was purchased in 1989, was 40 megabytes (which then was HUGE) and cost, with bundled controller, $500 (a scsi1 for an Amiga.) It was very slow and unreliable compared to current IDE hard drive technology. The process responsible for this is "economies of scale," and that's the same reason a $25K automobile today doesn't cost $75K--they've streamlined the manufacturing process because the market is so huge and the competition so fierce. It was only the x86 hardware platform that could ever have benefitted from its own economies of scale, because x86 is the only *open* hardware standard in the world, the only one not jealously guarded by a single company--for instance like SUN or Apple boxes--which *nobody* may make except SUN and Apple. It's because of that fact that SUN has started selling x86 boxes--they simply can't match the economies of scale that serve the x86 marketplace. If Linux ever catches on, it will do it the same way M$ did it--by serving the x86 platform market (certainly not on proprietary SUN and Apple boxes.)

I think you have completely misunderstood his remarks here. Believe me, he's not moron enough to fail to understand that his software would be worthless without x86 hardware. On the contrary, M$ alone, out of all of the major computer companies remaining today from the 80's, built itself around the x86 hardware paradigm. The simple truth is that M$ alone understood the importance of building a software company which made products for a vigorous and healthy and growing hardware market. Again, the software to the hardware is perfectly analogous to the relationship between gasoline and the automobile--without the one, you can't have the other. M$ has always understood this far better than Apple, SUN, Commodore, or...anybody else you might name, imo.

First, the Windows OS is not the only software that runs on x86 hardware. Dozens of companies besides Microsoft have made fortunes writing their own x86-Windows software--Symantec and Adobe, just to name a couple. I've got a very large, x86-Windows gaming software library, and 90% of that software is written by companies other than M$. The way most M$ "monopolists" think is that the only software anybody runs on a Windows box is Windows. Of course, anybody who runs a Windows box and gets some use out of it knows that isn't true. When Netscape had a monopoly on Internet browsers, the irony is that the company achieved it by writing a Windows-compatible browser...

Second, the only people who think that "M$ stifles competition" are the people who run companies who do not wish to compete with M$. Like Real Networks, they want M$ out of the picture so that everyone will be forced to run their cruddy, crappy software instead (I think "Real" is crap, I'm not bashful to say.) When it comes to software, never forget that software companies apart from M$ have absolutely *nothing against* software monopolies for a given market or task. Their only complaint is that it isn't *their* monopoly... They want their own monopolies, but they don't want to have to compete, most especially to compete with M$, for the privilege... It really is that simple, I think. Real Networks wants M$ out so that Real Networks can own the markets it plays in and sue everybody else out of its market space (similar to how Apple behaves with regard to the Mac market space.) Likewise, Netscape wanted to own the browser market, felt it was entitled to the browser market on a silver platter, and simply *quit* when it became apparent it would have to compete with M$. Personally, I'm delighted to see M$ compete in these markets as I have had *choices* in software products I would not otherwise have had if not for M$. Yes, I lament the fact that Netscape quit the browser market and took its marbles and went home simply because M$ decided to get into the browser market--but I don't blame M$ for that--I blame Netscape.

Vampyromaniac

I genuflect before you, WaltC

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BWX

Well maybe patenting a steering wheel seems crazy, but when everyone else in the world is using 2 sticks coming out of the floorboard, the guy that invents the steering wheel should be able to capitalize on his invention for a period of time before "party B" can come along and create a monopolistic company off of your idea.. Even though it was neither of their ideas... it was just an example..

"1963
Douglas Engelbart invents the mouse pointing device for computers. (The mouse will be re-born some twenty years in the future, when personal computers become powerful enough to support graphical user interfaces.)"

But then again, sure, all cars have engines- but Honda invented VTEC (variable valve timing), and capitalized on it for years before let's say, Toyota could make any money from their knock off version "Vvti"- now every car manufacturer in the world has their own version of VTEC.. But I don't think that's why Gates is a thieving bast age though, I just think he's a greedy greedy guy who wants to own everything, even if a owning a monopoly and stomping out fair competition is the only way to do it.

So is it OK for whoever invented IM to sue everyone with an IM client 10 years later? I don't know but I seem to remember something like that happening a few months ago..

I don't think Apple did everything perfectly either, obviously their proprietary hardware got them nowhere- it still needed software to run it and it wasn't any better than anything else..









Yes, exactly, but in Bill Gates hopeful view of the future, the car would cost $40 and the "gas" to run it would cost $700.

The only catch is that the gas would have to be licensed to each car- and updated frequently, and one company would control the worlds gas supply, and be able to manipulate it to his liking.. Oh, on top of that, the gas would expire every 3 years and wouldn't work after that because the updates and support for the "gas" would all of the sudden be gone.. Making that gas a coaster.. Oh, and that gas would allow thieves to steal your car and discombobulate the engine unless you buy third party additives to keep the doors locked.. (firewall, Antivirus?)- On top of that the gas would contain secret black boxes reporting back to MS, not the car itself.. (Spyware, etc..)

I think the "gas" is a rip off- and the licensing scheme is a rip-off, especially for personal use..

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BWX

Because he said this:

"Ten years out, in terms of actual hardware costs you can almost think of hardware as being free-but, blah, blah blah"

--He has his head far up his 'you know what' still. He's just trying to marginalize the hardware and trump up his "amazing MS software", without being so blunt about it.. The software will be great and all, but the hardware that will be small enough to be portable and powerful enough to recognize speech and apparently communicate like 'Data' from Star trek will be insanely expensive.. If he doesn't think so he's nuts. Either that or this "Holy grail" he talks about isn't what he is representing it to be.


I mean what is he talking about here?-->
" Many of the holy grails of computing that have been worked on over the last 30 years will be solved within this 10-year period, with speech being in every device and having a device that's like a tablet that you just carry around," Gates said at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo, held by information technology researcher Gartner Group. "


I think the "HOLY GRAIL" of computing is more than Microsoft SAM blowing smoke up my but trying to make me think MS has some kind of alien futuristic software at work. Maybe my grandmother will fall for it, but I think He's just all talk at this point.

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