Bill Gates Regrets Microsoft Losing to Android as Dominant Platform Beyond iPhone

At a recent event hosted by venture capital firm Village Global, highlighted by TechCrunch, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates lamented on losing to Android, calling it “one of the greatest mistakes of all time.”

Skip to the 11:40 mark:

Transcript:

In the software world, it’s very predictable for platforms. These are winner-take-all markets. The greatest mistake ever is whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is. Android is the standard phone platform — non-Apple phone platform. That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win. It really is winner take all. If you’re there with half as many apps, or 90 percent as many apps, you’re on your way to complete doom. There’s room for exactly one non-Apple operating system. […]

It’s amazing to me having made one of the greatest mistakes of all time… our other assets, Windows, Office, are still very strong… we are a leading company. If we’d gotten that right, we’d be the leading company.

In fairness, it was Steve Ballmer who served as Microsoft’s CEO between 2000 and 2014. Ballmer is infamous for laughing off the iPhone, but Apple and Google had the last laugh, as Windows Phone failed to ever…