Gates on Computers: 'We're Not There Yet'

Published: January 31, 2007

by Alex Woodie

Maybe Bill Gates didn't get the memo. Instead of declaring Windows Vista to be the greatest operating system of all time and hailing the spectacular advances that Windows developers and partners have made--as one might expect him to do, considering Microsoft is calling Vista its biggest product launch ever--Gates inadvertently downplayed the progress his company and the rest of the industry have made during an interview on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" in New York City Monday night, just hours before Windows Vista went on sale.

After trying to get Gates to give up his security password and quizzing the world's biggest philanthropist about when we're all going to get jet packs (not anytime soon, apparently), Stewart went all apropos on the chairman and asked him if he's accomplished everything he set out to do when he founded Microsoft with Paul Allen more than 30 years ago.

"We're not there yet," Gates said. "We were very optimistic. We thought machines would become these great tools, but we also saw that you could talk to them as well as use the keyboard, you could use ink and they would recognize your notes. So there's a few things left to be done that were part of that original vision."

It doesn't look like we're going to see Gates' original vision come to life during the next 30 years, either, especially considering the fact that Gates has greatly reduced his role at Microsoft.

"We're not even halfway there in terms of the kind of impact it can have, helping you to learn in better ways, helping medicine to be done in a better way," Gates said. "Even things like TV, where you only have a certain number of channels and it's not very interactive, that can be revolutionized as we move it onto the Internet."

Several minutes later, as Stewart was wrapping up the interview, he asked Gates where he was off to next. "I'll be in Europe, four different countries, then I get to go back home," Gates said. "Well it's good because clearly you need your rest. It's a big operation," the comedian said. At that point, Gates got up abruptly and walked off the stage, much to the surprise of Stewart.

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