Bill Gates: 1 Billion Not Enough - 6 Billion Users Would Do Nicely

Chairman Bill Gates revealed that Microsoft continues to remain loyal to the company's founding principle, a computer on every desk and in every home. Delivering a keynote address at the Microsoft Strategic Summit 2007, in Seattle Washington on May 8, 2007, Gates was clear that the Redmond Company is looking to expand its current global market domination over the desktop.

"We've got about a billion PCs in the install base, and so a lot of the discussion around Microsoft in terms of simplicity and bringing cost down is how do we get the next several billion out there. After all, our founding principle was the computer on every desk and in every home, and that gets you up to the entire population, 6 billion people, that you would like to be available to. That won't happen overnight, but we have set a goal for ourselves of getting out at least to the next billion over a five-year period, and we think that's very achievable. In fact, some of the numbers we're looking at suggest we can go even beyond that," Gates commented.

Microsoft currently owns in excess of 93% of the operating system market. 82.65% of all the world's computers are currently running Windows XP, according to data published by Market Share by Net Applications. And Windows Vista is delivering a superb performance taking over 3.02% of the market in the first three months since the January launch. "Shipping Windows Vista was a great, great milestone for the company. And in the first 30 days I think we sold over 20 million units, which doubled the run rate of Windows XP. So we're excited to have the product released in the marketplace, and we're excited about the impact it's having on our customers," stated Kevin Johnson President, Platforms & Services Division, Microsoft.

Still, Gates' perspective over the digital media is focused on the evolution of the Internet. Microsoft has on several occasions referenced a software plus services business strategy, making the Cloud and the Desktop complementary.

"The Internet is like a lot of things, the only sure winner with the breakthrough are the consumers themselves. There will be some companies that do well out of it, but it really, most of it, passes on to simplify things for now the not only hundreds of millions but billions of users who are connected up through these devices," Gates added.