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Bill Gates's The Road Ahead, 15 Years Later

Posted by kdawson on from the answer-unclear-try-again dept.

smooth wombat writes "It's been 15 years since Bill Gates wrote his book The Road Ahead, in which he talks about how technology would shape the future. In the intervening years, technology has changed many aspects of our lives for better and worse. So how did Bill do on his predictions? The Atlantic takes a look at the hits and misses of some of his prognostications. Overall, it appears Bill let optimism guide his thoughts, except when it came to the Internet — his biggest miss of all."

70 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft best innovation. by ls671 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I feel like Microsoft has never developed a key software innovation and is not that good at predictions. I guess a lot of people feel the same as me. They are excellent at marketing their products and at keeping a healthy business although.

    I searched Google with the terms "Microsoft innovation" and "Microsoft best innovation" to try to prove myself wrong but I did not find anything. Try it for yourself.

    The best innovation from Microsoft I could think of is DOS, but it was originally written to IBM specs then Microsoft recycled it into MS-DOS which is more a profiting after the fact attitude.

    So here we go slashdotters: What is the best innovation Microsoft has brought to us and/or which Microsoft prophecy turned out to be the best prediction ?

    http://www.dwheeler.com/innovation/microsoft.html

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    1. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by Pop69 · · Score: 4, Funny

      See, the problem is you're searching on Google.

      Try Bing, I'm sure it will be full of wonderful Microsoft innovations

    2. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 4, Interesting

      DOS is not a great innovation. DOS, like most Microsoft products, is just a rework of someone's earlier innovation. If there is innovation there it's in how they adapted well established systems (like CP/M and, even earlier, BASIC) from Mainframe and Mini computers to much less powerful PCs and home computers. Bill Gates is good at that, but he by no means has been an inventor. At best he's dumbed down many of the best computer innovations so he can get them through the front door of offices and homes.

    3. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by c++0xFF · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What is the best innovation Microsoft has brought to us?

      The BSOD, of course. Bob and Clippy are tied for 2nd place.

    4. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Visual Studio per se probably isn't innovative, but it's a really stable product and better than anything else on the market. Microsoft also used to publish great and also innovative games (why not anymore?)

      You hit VS right on the head - it's not really anything new, but the features that they add to each version are usually pretty rock solid in their implementation. Not a whole other suites were offering LINQ - but they were there. Microsoft just made it easier to use those kinds of features.

      As for the games, its a lot like their web content. Most of the games Microsoft has made have been other dev studios being purchased or bought out or simply backed by Microsoft. Microsoft put their name on Halo, even though it was Bungie's work. They also have their name on the Age of Empires, though that was ensemble studios. Perhaps the only one I can think of that was MS was Microsoft's Flight Simulator.

      As for innovation, perhaps people shouldn't be expecting it from these large companies. In essence, a lot of the newer technologies today come from some super intelligent geek who has a dream to make it real. So once they get out of MIT or wherever, they start their project, demo it at TED or some festival, than they either get picked up by one of these corporations or their idea gets stolen.

    5. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > EVERYTHING is like that though.

      Except some people have a habit of denying this. Microsoft is notorious for this.

      That's why Slashbots give them so much sh*t. They deserve it for being such plagarists.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    6. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by ls671 · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Component Object Model (COM) is a binary-interface standard for software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993."

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_Object_Model

      "The idea of RPC (Remote Procedure Call) goes back at least as far as 1976"

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_procedure_call

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    7. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by Artifakt · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Microsoft sort of faltered on some of its arguably best ideas. They implemented dynamic linking libraries, for example, and then couldn't or didn't get all the 3rd party developers to put the DLL's in the same place (Windows/system). They added the System32 subdirectory to keep 32 bit and 16 bit DLLs separate, and couldn't get cooperation on that either. Notice that Microsoft could have not issued its Windows certified or compatible stickers to anyone who didn't play along. They decided they would rather be able to brag about how much 3rd party software Windows could run, than get strict compliance. The exact same thing happened with the registry and individual .ini files.
            I'm not saying that Microsoft originated the DLL concept in its underlying form mind you, just that it was a good concept in that it that fit the abstraction layer model for computing, and Microsoft was in a position to decide DLLs either all went in the program's own directory or in Microsoft's special place, and they took a few half hearted steps to try to enforce one system, flip-flopped to the other, and then faltered completely. The same goes for the registry - somebody at Microsoft had a vision for how the damned thing was supposed to work that arguably could have made for a better security model or more stable environment than what they ended up doing, and the vision was even partly implemented, then faltered over time.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    8. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by ID000001 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I will have to disagree. The side bar have been in various beta states on Google for over 2 years, That is before Bing even went public.

    9. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by Kilrah_il · · Score: 3, Funny

      MS Bob!

      --
      Whenever in an argument, remember this.
    10. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by seven+of+five · · Score: 3, Informative

      The best innovation from Microsoft I could think of is DOS, but it was originally written to IBM specs then Microsoft recycled it into MS-DOS which is more a profiting after the fact attitude.

      errr.... Microsoft didn't develop DOS either. They bought it.

    11. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by negRo_slim · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Considering Direct X is the foundation upon which their gaming (and increasingly home entertainment divisions) are built upon I find the idea 'got out of PC gaming' absurd. Also consoles are not profitable, it's the software that run on them where the money lies.

      --
      On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
    12. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by gorzek · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think you misunderstood me. Gaming has, by and large, moved to consoles. Microsoft has largely exited the PC gaming market--period. They axed the Flight Simulator team, and I can't recall a PC game produced by Microsoft within the last few years. They've concentrated their efforts on the XBox family.

      And no kidding, they don't make money on the consoles. They still collect money for every game sold, plus the XBox Live subscription fees, plus download sales. It's a far more profitable model than developing and publishing PC games.

      --
      Check out my world simulator thingy.
    13. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 5, Interesting

      So here we go slashdotters: What is the best innovation Microsoft has brought to us...

      The "brought to us" part is the hard part. Plenty of important innovation has happened at Microsoft, but they aren't that good at turning it into products.

      For example, Microsoft researchers developed a kind of help system that observed what a user did, and learned their use patterns, and was able to recognize when they were having trouble with something and offer suggestions. It worked very well, mostly only interrupting with suggestions when you were in genuine need of help.

      When this moved from the lab to the product people, the marketing people loved it, but complained that it didn't show up enough. They wanted to advertise this great feature, but if the typical user only actually saw it do something once a week or so, that would suck (from the salesman's point of view). So marketing forced the people implementing to turn the thresholds way down, and make it pop up a lot, with often inane suggestions. And that's how Clippy went from being perhaps the most sophisticated automated assistant in the world when it was in the lab, to perhaps the most annoying automated pest in the world when it ended up in products.

      Another good example is statistical spam filtering. Microsoft internally had one of the earliest, and best, spam handling systems. They also were the first (in a partnership with outside researchers at, I think, Stanford) the first to publish academic papers on Bayesian filtering. But it was others who picked up on this and wrote articles for the non-academic crowd that made outside programmers aware of these techniques, and so few realize Microsoft was one of the pioneers here.

      Their spam filtering actually went far beyond just filtering for spam. At one time they had a system internally that could look at your incoming mail, analyze it, figure out what it was about, and rank the importance of it. This was tied in with other systems, such as the web cam on your computer and the microphone on your computer. The web cam could watch you, and the microphone listen to what was going on in your office. If it say and heard that you were meeting with others, it could see who they were, and hear what you are talking about, analyze that and figure out its importance, and decide if the mail you just received can wait or is important enough to interrupt you.

      Aside from one or two articles in the press that mentioned this system as part of stories profiling research at MS, I've not heard anything about it since. It apparently never made it to any kind of product development stage. Someday, someone else will do it all the way through to product (Google's a good candidate), and no one will remember that Microsoft had it first.

    14. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by need4mospd · · Score: 5, Funny
      It looks like you're trying to write a snarky comment about Microsoft. Would you like to:

      - Make references to the instability of the operating system

      - Discuss alternate software or operating systems that may be more functional

      - Spell Microsoft with a dollar sign

    15. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by elrous0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, Apple are, without a doubt, the jedi fucking masters on that front. Listening to a Steve Jobs keynote is like being the head catcher at a bullshit tossing contest. Every product they release is REVOLUTIONARY, every new line is the light bulb and Steve Jobs and is Thomas Edison himself. Listening to him intro the iPhone, you'd think there was no such thing as a mobile phone before the iPhone came along. If the audience wasn't filled with such fawning admirers, he would get openly laughed at for some of the outlandish hyperbole.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    16. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by Arancaytar · · Score: 2, Funny

      Indeed, I searched Google for "Microsoft innovation" and it asked me:

      "Did you mean 'Microsoft immolation'?"

    17. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      If Microsoft had a dollar for every actual innovation their research division has come up with that has never been turned into a released product...oh wait, they do.

    18. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by mcgrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Bing itself was innovative from Microsoft, even so far that Google copied Bing's sidebar from them,

      I keep hearing about this sidebar, mostly from people who hate it, but I've never seen it, either at work in IE6 on XP or at home on Firefox on Win7 (wish I could figure out how to install Mandriva on a netbook). I can't figure that out, either. Is the sidebar an iGoogle thing? At any rate, what good is an innovation everyone seems to hate?

      and Bing was the first one to demonstrate and introduce real-time 3D video mapped into street view.

      I not only didn't know Bing had anything like street view, I can't even find it on Bing. Googling "streetview" on Bing gives me only satellite images and links to Google Streetview.

      Google isn't really that innovative either. They're different, sure, but any larger "innovation" they've done has come from smaller companies they have bought

      You must be new here -- to the internet, I mean. Google's biggest innovation was their pagerank, which actually gives meaningful results. Before Google, Infoseek was the best search engine, and we didn't even realize how badly it sucked until Google came along. And infoseek was head and shoulders above MS's search (yes, MS had search before Google existed. It just wasn't any good).

      I think Courier was quite innovative.

      Vaporware isn't innovation.

      Visual Studio per se probably isn't innovative, but it's a really stable product

      So what's your point? You were responding to a comment about MS's lack of innovation, not its lack of stability. What makes you such a MS fan? Yes, I like Excel and consider it the best spreadsheet I've used (better than Quattro, Lotus, or Open Office spreadsheet), but so what?

      Microsoft still spends millions into R&D while Apple does nothing like that.

      What you spend on R&D isn't important, the results of that R&D are. They spent millions on Vista alone, and even Ballmer says it was a dog. As to Apple, I think the iPod and iPhone prove you wrong even though I don't have one of either, or for that matter any Apple product (I think all of Apple's stuff is way overpriced). You think they didn't expend any money on R&D for those products?

      Large companies cant afford taking that kind of risks and losing.

      They can and they do. Streetview was an incredibly expensive risk no startup could possibly have accomplished, and the iPod was certainly a risky and expensive endeavor. Not to mention the Prius, SpaceShip Two, etc. The Edsel didn't bankrupt Ford.

      What division of MS do you work for? If not, why are you so gung-ho about Microsoft? I like a few of their offerings, but by and large most of the stuff I've had the displeasure of using sucked badly and were in no way innovative.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    19. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What about Office?

      Office is the sum of its parts, which were originally separate. Word was built on a prototype called Bravo that Microsoft bought from Xerox PARC. Access and Excel appear to be MS originals, though. Fun fact: Excel 1.0 was a Mac exclusive. Not until 2.0 (actually, 2.05) was there Excel for Windows.

    20. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by hansede · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Also consoles are not profitable, it's the software that run on them where the money lies.

      Whoever makes the console rakes in the developer fees. Consoles are uber profitable.

    21. Re:Microsoft best innovation. by rsimpson · · Score: 2, Funny

      Googling "streetview" on Bing

      Well, there's your problem...

  2. To Acknowledge One's Mistake Is One Thing by eldavojohn · · Score: 3, Insightful
    To edit what you wrote to correct your predictions is another. From the article (and my memory):

    Gates's notion that the Internet would play a supporting role in the information highway of the future, rather than being the highway itself, was out-of-date the day The Road Ahead was published. Even Gates realized it. Shortly before his book hit the stores, Gates reorganized Microsoft to focus more on the Internet, and he made major revisions to a second edition of The Road Ahead, adding material that highlighted the significance of the Internet.

    Never admitting fault or that you were wrong is one of the hallmarks of a successful businessman. You never have to acknowledge a weakness, you never have to assume responsibility, your image never falters and when your mistakes are too great, you can bail like a rat on a sinking ship instead of playing the part of the captain. It's this draconian mentality that will ensure your less intelligent employees view you as an immortal deity and flawless leader while the smarter employees exit your ship the next time it docks.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:To Acknowledge One's Mistake Is One Thing by spun · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You forgot, "never show empathy." And now we have a complete diagnosis: sociopath. Only sociopaths have what it takes to succeed in modern business, everyone else is just too weak. We used to shun or kill monsters, now we elevate them to the status of Gods.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    2. Re:To Acknowledge One's Mistake Is One Thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "To edit what you wrote to correct your predictions" for a new edition of a book is not unethical as you imply, it is the usual manner in which one adds value to a book to make the new edition more useful. Some Slashdotters might remember what we used to refer to as "textbooks" that we used in conjunction with classroom instruction. Textbooks used to be revised frequently, primarily so the textbook publishers could sell more books, but the normal method of enticing people to buy the revised version was to correct them and add material.

    3. Re:To Acknowledge One's Mistake Is One Thing by spun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I would say rather, it has changed, to a high water mark in the 1950s, when the top tax bracket was 90%, but has changed back as the monsters fought back. Of course, I'm sure we all agree that we need to stop them at all costs. One can not bargain nor reason with monsters.

      That is the true purpose of government, the people banding together to protect themselves from those who would oppress and abuse them. It is our duty, as individuals and citizens, to do everything in our power to stop them.

      In any case, whether I am right or you are right about what has come before, I hope we can agree that being led about by monsters is not the optimal state of affairs, and we need to change things so society does not favor sociopaths. Sociopaths do not deserve the freedom to oppress others without consequences. No one does.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    4. Re:To Acknowledge One's Mistake Is One Thing by RazorSharp · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You're right. I remember reading a study in a psychology class about how sociopathic CEOs tended to be. If not a sociopath, they tend to be obsessive compulsive. Think about it: most people, if paid as much as a Fortune 500 CEO, would retire after one year. Being a CEO is extremely stressful and most will never utilize the vast amounts of wealth they acquire. For them, business is a game that they just can't put down.

      I think Microsoft with Gates/Balmer are a prime example of this. Their willingness to sink more resources into a project than it will profit for the sake of market-share demonstrates that they view business as a game of Monopoly. Look at the XBox, Bing, and IE. Gates cares more about his legacy than anything else. He cares more about having credit for modern technological achievements than actually contributing to society. Just look at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I know it's taboo to criticize, but as the Priest in A Clockwork Orange said, "What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness?" Intentions and motivations matter, and Gates has demonstrated time after time that he is motivated by selfishness and arrogance. If he cared about technological progress he wouldn't try to beat the competition to the market with half-assed products, stagnate progress once he has a lock on a market, and make an enemy of open source. If he cared about helping people then he wouldn't insist on being given credit for it with interviews every time his foundation spends a few cents. He's a sociopath.

      --
      "From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
    5. Re:To Acknowledge One's Mistake Is One Thing by spun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yet government, just like fire, is essential to modern society.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    6. Re:To Acknowledge One's Mistake Is One Thing by nine-times · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You're right. I remember reading a study in a psychology class about how sociopathic CEOs tended to be. If not a sociopath, they tend to be obsessive compulsive. Think about it: most people, if paid as much as a Fortune 500 CEO, would retire after one year. Being a CEO is extremely stressful and most will never utilize the vast amounts of wealth they acquire. For them, business is a game that they just can't put down.

      I would put it this way: a sensible person doesn't really want that much power, because (to steal from Stan Lee) with great power comes great responsibility. Having lots of responsibility is extremely unpleasant; it's impossible to be sure that you're doing everything you can, and people will inevitably get hurt. There are reasons to take on responsibility, such as financial reward, satisfying some compulsion to achieve something, or satisfying a perceived obligation. However, it's still unpleasant, and a sensible person won't seek to continue to hold responsibility for longer than is needed. Therefore, that sensible person also won't seek extreme amounts of power.

      The exception are people who don't really care about fulfilling their responsibilities. If you don't care about whether you're doing everything you can, and if you don't care about other people getting hurt, then having responsibility isn't unpleasant. If you don't care about the ramifications of your actions and you are entirely self-serving, then the only thing that will matter is the accrual of additional power.

      So that's my quick and dirty explanation of why psychopaths keep getting themselves into positions of power: they're the ones who really want it. The only solution is to keep power dilute.

    7. Re:To Acknowledge One's Mistake Is One Thing by spun · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As I stated, we reached a high water mark in capping the power of sociopaths sometime back in the fifties. The highest tax rate was 90%. Since then, the sociopathic class has fought back with their theories of trickle down economics and government deregulation. This isn't an insolvable problem, all it takes is for the vast majority of decent folks to realize that the rich do not have their best interests at heart, and as they are not sociopaths, they will never be let in the club.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    8. Re:To Acknowledge One's Mistake Is One Thing by nine-times · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I would have thought the same way once. Then I grew up.

      Spend some time "in charge" of anything even moderately important, and you will make decisions that will upset people and even hurt people. Either you'll find that extremely unpleasant, you won't notice because you're arrogant and self-absorbed, or you won't care because you're a sociopath.

      Now I'm not saying that no sensible person will accept power under any circumstances. Like I said, a person might want to achieve positive things, or might have a sense of obligation. However, what I'm trying to argue against is the childish idea that having power is awesome fun, and it allows you to simply do what you want without drawbacks. Having power often means that you can't do what you want because the more power you have, the more obligations you have. And you will make mistakes, and you will fail to meet some of those obligations.

      Someone once said, "Man has a right to do whatever he can, and his only real responsibility is to live with the consequences.". The more power you have, the more you can do. But also, the more power you have, the greater the consequences.

      So when you talk about a position like the PotUS, I don't envy that power. To take on that job, you either need to be a moron, a sociopath, or a saint.

    9. Re:To Acknowledge One's Mistake Is One Thing by nine-times · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe you're just trolling, but for the record, I'm not trying to explain my inability to put myself "out in front of the pack and take charge of anything". I used to be very ambitious and I worked my way to being "out in front of the pack" and I now I am in charge. I'm the boss. And I've discovered that being in charge is as much a burden as it is a reward. I wouldn't say I was "an idiot" when I sought power, but I was perhaps delusional and ignorant. Maybe even self-absorbed.

      Meanwhile I've have observed a lot of other people trying to wriggle themselves into various positions of power (including watching my underlings jockey for promotion), and there tend to be some commonalities. There's almost always a kind of prideful self-absorbed ignorance similar to what I'd suffered, and it's dangerous. And while it's scary enough to watch the people who are oblivious of the damage they're doing, what's even worse are the people who just don't care about the damaging they're doing.

  3. Email... by Knara · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does anyone really work for an organization that 1) has people who regularly don't get emails and 2) is encouraging people to use email less?

    Seems like workflow problems, not email problems.

    1. Re:Email... by flyingfsck · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, I currently work at such a place. One old fart hates Email and so no-one ever sends him any. The rest of us however, are normal.

      --
      Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
    2. Re:Email... by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'll second that. In fact, I have worked in a place which had precisely the effect he's talking about -- we had a few short meetings, and a lot of discussions via email, version control logs, etc.

      The miss was "shared screens" -- no idea what he's talking about.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  4. Still worked out better than my own predictions by Skyshadow · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's easy to make fun of Bill for his predictions, but I'll admit my own haven't worked out so great either. Here from 1995:

    - By 2010, as many as 1 out of every 25 people will have an email account, causing massive slowdown of the FidoNet.
    - I'll never be that old guy who gets his video-game ass handed to him by 13 year olds.
    - Register sex.com? Nah, that'd be a waste of $100.
    - Being a programmer will be a totally safe field -- it's not like people in India will suddenly all get computers and start coding.

    Ouch.

    --
    Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
    1. Re:Still worked out better than my own predictions by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Funny

      I don't see anything about flying cars.

      Moller's latest prototype broke its tether, pitched sideways, and came through his window, killing him while at the same instant dropping a bolt on the mouse, pressing Submit, before he could bring that up.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Still worked out better than my own predictions by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Being a programmer will be a totally safe field -- it's not like people in India will suddenly all get computers and start coding.

      Not totally safe, but companies are starting to figure out that you get what you pay for, and demand is steadily increasing, particularly for people with actual comp sci degrees.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  5. Yeah, but in his defense... by Pojut · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...predicting the future of technology is always a difficult thing to do. Just 30 years ago, the current state of the Internet was almost unfathomable. Think about it: in just 30 years, we've gone from cell phones being prohibitively expensive and the size of briefcases, to cell phones that fit in your pocket and allow you to access the whole of human knowledge in a matter of seconds. In 50 years, we've gone from computers being the size of rooms, to the iPhone, or Android phones.

    My cell phone, an HTC Ozone, is more powerful than my computer from the late 90's. Aside from the video card, my cell phone is technically powerful enough to run Deus Ex...and my cell phone is far from the best one on the market.

    --
    Living With a Nerd
    1. Re:Yeah, but in his defense... by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, many phones (not sure about yours) probably have a video card that's more than good enough to run Deus Ex. It's the CPU architecture that'd most likely be a problem.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  6. Never Seen a Quote from Bill's Book by BoRegardless · · Score: 3, Funny

    The book is as irrelevant as Bill Gates and I suspect Bill understood and that is why he left for something he was fully qualified to do: give away money.

    1. Re: Never Seen a Quote from Bill's Book by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Funny

      that is why he left for something he was fully qualified to do: give away money.

      I liked the Jon Stewart comment after the police raid over the lost iPhone:

      [in confused voice, after reminding us of the Apple "1984" commercial:] 'Apple is busting down doors in Palo Alto and Bill Gates is killing mosquitoes in Africa.'

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    2. Re:Never Seen a Quote from Bill's Book by elrous0 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Jobs making a remark about Gates' taste reminds me of the snide fashionista who can see everyone else's flaws but his own.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  7. Microsoft best innovation: Clippy! by flyingfsck · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well, Clippy of course! How else would people ever have figured out how to write a letter?

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
    1. Re:Microsoft best innovation: Clippy! by kimvette · · Score: 2, Funny

      http://teneo.org/eh/Clippy/Clippy%20Suicide%20Note.gif /obligatory

      --
      The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
  8. Microsoft purchased DOS. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Informative

    Quote: Microsoft purchased 86-DOS, allegedly for $50,000. It was an improvement of the CP/M operating system.

  9. still no progress in .... by u19925 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." (p.265)

    1. Re:still no progress in .... by pjt33 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I can factor large prime numbers really easily.

  10. face to face by citylivin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "But friendships formed online don't regularly lead to face-to-face meetings."

    The author of this retrospective was dead wrong. I know plenty of people who chat on facebook and then meetup in real life. Its generally for dating purposes. Not to mention craigslist, and the multitude of online games, fourms and other avenues to connect your real life to the internet. Infact, I think gates was more prescient than the author is giving him credit for. If you had asked me 15 years ago, I would have said that was unlikely as everyone uses pseudonames and tries hard to hide their real selves.

    This is clearly no longer the case, so I think gates was correct that the "superhighway" has led to more face to face interactions.

    --
    As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
    1. Re:face to face by Antisyzygy · · Score: 3, Informative

      I met my wife on a dating site.

      --
      That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
    2. Re:face to face by Doctor+Faustus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I met mine through the VMS Confer message boards set up at our college. They were already ancient in 1994, but still pretty popular.

  11. Gates Miss on Networking actually a Hit. by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I disagree with the networking assessment. Even the fastest "home" wireless is still significantly slower than consumer wired ethernet. Higher end wired networking is faster still. Also, while wireless might seem at least barely adequate at home, it can quickly become unusable outside the home. 3G coverage is spotty and often completely unusable. Wireless still has a ways to go. Although of course there are always some that push technology and those that don't.

    Although the main problem with wireless is security, not speed.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    1. Re:Gates Miss on Networking actually a Hit. by KiwiSurfer · · Score: 3, Informative

      3G coverage is spotty and often completely unusable.

      Outside the US in countries that actually built out decent 3G networks, coverage is pretty good and usable. Here in New Zealand we have two networks providing 3G coverage to 97% of the population. All the cities have near-complete 3G coverage. I understand the situation is similar in many other Western countries (especially in Europe and Australia) with the obvious exception of the US. In some areas 3G wireless is actually faster than ADSL wired.

  12. Direct X by FileNotFound · · Score: 3, Informative

    The framework made writing PC games relatively easy. Direct 3D did away with propriety 3D drivers. Direct Sound did the same for sound cards.

    Without Direct X gaming on the PC would not mean "Windows Games".

    Maybe that's not a good thing, but DirectX has had more effect on the PC Games industry than any other product.

    --
    In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
  13. Ballmer by sckirklan · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Steve Ballmer developer jam. Although not foretold in Gates' book.

  14. Re:So what? by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No. When that book was written, it was already obvious that the Internet was going to kill off proprietary services like Prodigy and AOL. By the time that the net came along those services were OLD. They were an OLD model. They were long overdue for a disruption. Any technophile worth his salt should have seen this. More likely, Gates saw his interest lying in replacing AOL and wanted to push that idea whether he thought it was likely or not.

    He simply wanted to try and push the world into his particular Walled Garden.

    What a businessman tells you can't be taken at face value.

    Ultimately he's going to want to sell you something.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  15. The real prediction by ch-chuck · · Score: 4, Funny

    He could easily have predicted, "In the future, I'll still be filthy rich" - not one to be careless with money.

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  16. He wasn't the only one.. by wiredog · · Score: 3, Informative

    Another book from 15 years ago that biffed it.

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
  17. The bit problem with... by toadlife · · Score: 2, Informative

    ...the "Microsoft has never innovated" crowd is that they don't know what the word innovation means.

    Hint: Innovation is not a synonym for invention.

    --
    I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
  18. Well, Marvin Minsky was wrong too. by dbuttric · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was in the AI lab at MIT, testing my wits against LISP. In walks Marvin Minsky.

    I asked him if he could give me a tip or two about atoms.

    His response to me was: "Well, why dont you wait until the computer speaks your language... Then program it in that?"

    That was alot longer ago than 15 years...

    1. Re:Well, Marvin Minsky was wrong too. by Grishnakh · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The problem is that there's really no way to program a computer in a human language and get it to work properly. It's impossible. Human language simply isn't precise enough. Two humans speaking the same language, who've known each other for years, can't even tell each other something without there being a misunderstanding of some kind. It happens with my wife and myself all the time; she says something, I think she means one thing, she meant another, argument ensues...

      That's why we have languages for communicating with computers which are perfectly logical and leave out all ambiguity. That's the only way you can ever tell a computer how to do any task that has any kind of complexity. Sure, you can have a system with very limited functions, like a house computer where you can tell it "turn on the living room lights" (because the number of functions you're allowed to speak to it are extremely limited, there's little room for error), but there's no way you can write an arbitrary program in English.

      If we ever get away from logical computer languages, it'd be because we developed a brain-computer interface, and the computers can read our minds.

  19. How are these misses? by digiplant · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1) Email - Seems to me that his statement is a "hit". Email does alleviate the need for as many meetings and does allow my collegues and I to show up more informed. You really have to question the author's judgement if he doesn't think this was the biggest "hit" of all. Email has definitely changed the way I collaborate. This author wants us to believe that he never reviews documents that were emailed to him before a meeting?

    2) Social Networking - Again, what planet does this person live on? Not the planet earth where facebook gets more daily hits than google? This is so ridiculous he would call this a miss in any way. I definitely interact with people I would've otherwise lost contact with daily. I've also met several people online and then in real life.

    3) Online Shopping - Here the author is relying too much on Gates's exact words, and not the spirit of his statement. The internet has definitely revolutionized online shopping. Every book I buy, I first explore inside on amazon. When I was looking for cars, I find many online videos about it. When I rent a hotel, I can take a 360 view tour to make sure it is as swank as I would like it to be.

    4) The Internet and The Web - Again, I just don't see how Gates was really wrong here. The Internet is just part of the "information superhighway", albeit a large piece. I connect with private market data feeds from all over the world at work. I watch tv on my sprint cell phone. I use gps signal from satellites. I send text messages on my phone. I watch tv on my cable tv system. I play games against my friends over Xbox Live. I have a private network at home that I share video and music on. I buy quicken at best buy to manage my finances which also connects to my bank accounts. I also of course browse the web and send email.

    I could probably go on. The point is that this article either biased or wrong, maybe both.

    1. Re:How are these misses? by nine-times · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I disagree a little with you, but I don't quite agree with the author either. All in all, I wouldn't say that Gates was completely wrong, but it seems like he was kind of clueless and he missed the point. Like yes, he understood that online shopping will be important *somehow*, but he thought vendors would show you video of the products before you bought them. However, that's not what makes online shopping interesting at all; the process of buying things online is essentially not very different from buying out of a catalog. There are several issues, and I'd give some points for predicting any of these:

      • the concept of the "long tail" and how the Internet enables companies to make money selling low-volume products
      • the concept of boutique shops being able to reach a wider audience
      • the idea that user reviews would be posted along with products
      • some idea of how viral marketing would influence purchasing decision
      • the concept of aggregating pricing information to find the best deal
      • the idea that we would be buying media online instead of going to record stores, movie theaters, and paying for cable

      ... and I don't know. I had a few more in mind but I didn't write them down quickly enough and I forgot what I was going to say. My point is, there are a *lot* of interesting things about online shopping, and the idea of being able to see a live video stream of the product you're going to buy is a such a niche use that it's silly. I can't give him any credit for it. I also can't give him credit for simply thinking that you would buy some things online. Too obvious.

      And a lot of Gates' predications over the years have been like that: latching onto obvious possibilities, but showing little understanding of what will actually drive things.

      I'd also note that I love email and it is extremely useful, but it's also true that it is a bit of a time-waster (as much of the Internet is). I once measured this, and at my work address, something like 2% of the email messages that I receive are anything that I want to read. Literally 90% is spam. About 8% more are notifications and email conversations that I get copied on but which have absolutely nothing to do with me. Of those 2% remaining, I only skim them looking to see if there's anything I need to deal with, and I pretty well ignore the rest.

  20. Just 15 years?? by RealityProphet · · Score: 2, Interesting

    pffft...AT&T (of all companies) nailed the future in 1993! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8

  21. My favorite: a way to factor large prime numbers by drdrgivemethenews · · Score: 2, Funny

    "The obvious mathematical breakthrough [to break modern encryption] would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers."
    -- Bill Gates, in "The Road Ahead," p. 265

    Uh huh.

  22. Microsoft is a toll collector for progress by dtjohnson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's always tempting to bash Microsoft and Bill G, with this thread being no exception. Nevertheless, what is notable about Microsoft is how little they have been able to accomplish in the last ten years, despite having a huge workforce of bright, talented people backed up by enormous financial resources. The reason for this, IMHO, is that Microsoft, the corporation, as established by Bill, primarily looks at new technology as an opportunity to collect tolls. They try and be first to spot the stuff that everyone is going to have to use or do and then they set themselves to collect tolls on the technological bridge that everyone is going to have to pass over. In that sense, they are more cunning than creative and that, ultimately, has been their downfall. Bill Gates book is more of a view of where he thought the future toll collecting opportunities were than it is of the potential for technology to improve lives. The best innovative tech entrepreneurs seem to think in terms of 'what is it possible to do with the technology? rather than 'how can we make money from the technology?' even though the latter question always becomes important in the later stages.

  23. Miss?? by bored · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Wireless Networks

    Prediction: "The wireless networks of the future will be faster, but unless there is a major breakthrough, wired networks will have a far greater bandwidth. Mobile devices will be able to send and receive messages, but it will be expensive and unusual to use them to receive an individual video stream."

    Sounds about spot on, especially if you consider HD video. Sure wireless is getting better but so are wired networks. I get 30+Mbit on my cable modem, and 10Gbit on my LAN. I can stream full 1080p HD quality compressed content over the internet without a second thought. I haven't seen to many wireless (ignoring 802.11g/n) networks capable of that, in fact its hard to stream any kind of video on any of the phone networks with any reliability.

  24. and predictions of 15 years from now? by peter303 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Moore's Law will continue in memory and bandwidth for the same cost, adding another thousand to both of these aspects. I supect CPU speed will not grow as fast the next 15 years. What more can we do with all that extra power?

    Video will continue to move into any conceivable niche, large or small. There is still room for video quality to improve however. I've seen monitors with contrast & color nearly indistinguishable from looking through a window at SIGGRAPH. I dont know if we want to grow that way.

    There will be a generation of adults in elective office who have always had the InterNet, smart phones and social networks in their lives. Will that change the way the world is run?

    Something I have been hoping for decades- a practical voice interface- has eluded us so far. I suspect their could be a revolutionary jump in natural language understanding and generation coming from the search side of things. NL has been essentially "procedural" so far, explicitly elucidating the rules of sound, vocabulary and language. A "search" approach matches actual sound with its text interpetation and builds a corpous of correllations. Language translations using large archives of existing translations along with search works reasonably well.

    Speaking of "search", full multimedia recognition and archiving may be around the corner. Google "goggles" tries to match a smart phone photo with an archive of photographs. Imagine if you track a person's visage or voice through all of public cameras and telephony. That could redefine privacy.

  25. Bill Gates today is a truly heroic person by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When Bill Gates was in charge of the Microsoft empire, his goal was to serve the empire. Once he quit and started thinking full time about how to make the world a better place, he has become a hero of mine. I don't mean that in any ironic sense; there is no other prominent voice in the world which is advocating for all the right stuff the way Gates is. If you want to see Gates at his best, watch his 2010 talk at TED. Almost never do I hear a talk like this, where I am prepared to endorse pretty much every word, down to his enthusiastic advocacy of traveling wave reactors.

  26. I'm tired of this dissing of Microsoft by rigorrogue · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously.

    I've been a *nix user since 1996. I'm a fan. I try and turn people to the light side every day. Linux rocks seismically.

    But I'm fed up of too many idiots dissing the researchers at Microsoft. Sure, the company makes dumb-ass decisions. What do you expect? Their responsibility is to shareholders, whose interest is clear and short-term by and large.

    Check out their research.

    Here's their latest sidebar snippet:

    Understanding the Rainforest Ecosystem
    http://research.microsoft.com/c/1101/en-us/news/features/rainforest-051910.aspx

    The company, with its billions, employs some of the most productive and interesting research in applied Information Theory in the world. Yes , they suck at implementations for end users because they're committed to some daft User Interface decisions. But fuck, do they hire and fund well.

    My favorite is Haskell. Guess who funds Simone Peyton-Jones? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Peyton_Jones). Microsoft.

    Microsoft is a company. It's an independent personality in law. Its responsibility is to its owners. And that would all be evil and everything except that _lots_ of fine upstanding pillars of the academic community take Microsoft's shilling to pay the bills and still work on AMAZING technology.

    We /.ers love to praise Google, dis M$, scorn Apple, and worship *nix. Dumb. It's an ecosystem. We all contribute. Sure it's competitive. We all win.

    Or am I just an idiot?

    --
    science in government