According to Bill Gates in this article, IBM is their biggest concern right now. Along with Sony and Nokia. Gates says that Google’s not as big a concern as the media thanks they are, but the media likes to right stories about the more interesting competitors, like Google and Apple.
I’m not sure if this is denial by Gates or an indictment to the media for not covering the news, just the popular. Bill Gates says:
“I’m never going to change the press’ view about what the cool company to write about is. That’s Google number 1 and Apple number 2. Too bad for Nokia, Sony and all those others.”
“The biggest company in the computer industry by far is IBM. They have the four times the employees that I have, way more revenues than I have. IBM has always been our biggest competitor. The press just doesn’t like to write about IBM,” said Gates.
After reading the article, I don’t think Gates is really in denial. The quote above clarifies the reason IBM is their biggest competitor. It’s no doubt that Google is quickly becoming someone they are definitely concerned about though. Depending on where Google heads with things, they may overtake IBM for top spot, but maybe not. With Google’s recent denial of building a Google PC for sale at Wal-Mart, it may be seen that Google’s not really interested in pursuing hardware at all, they just want to build the services that everyone uses.
Possibly, that’s where Microsoft has the advantage. If Microsoft continues to focus on what they’ve done so far and continue developing applications and other items that are tightly integrated with their hardward vendors, it may be their long-term solution. It’s no doubt that Microsoft covers the majority of the control of the user experience on many hardward components and devices. And all of those components and devices are what’s needed for people to access Google’s services.
“The stuff in the labs today, with speech recognition, visual recognition, ink recognition, reading everything online and new devices that enable that — in five years, that will just be common sense,” said Gates.
“We’re pretty simple, because 30 years ago we said we were a software company and five years, 10 years from now we will say we’re a software company.”
I’m not sure about that, I think Microsoft is much more than just a software company. They are a platform for how things get done in the United States and around the world, and not just in business and offices, but more and more in entertainment and homes.
Full Article: Gates sees IBM not Google as top Microsoft rival on Yahoo! News