Eric Schmidt doesn’t see Microsoft as one of the top players in the technology industry

Dec 5, 2012 12:14 GMT  ·  By

Former Google CEO and now executive chairman at the search giant, Eric Schmidt still places Microsoft out of his very own “Gang of Four” group that comprises companies which “matter the most” in the consumer technology industry.

In an interview with WSJ, Schmidt said that Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook remain the four top players in this sector, even though Microsoft has recently released several important products.

“We had never in our industry seen four network platforms of that scale. We had seen IBM and we had seen Microsoft. But now we have four, and the resultant competition is a huge change in the industry,” Schmidt explained.

As for Windows 8 and the Windows Phone 8, Microsoft is far from challenging Google and Android, the Google chairman believes.

“I have not used it, but I think that Microsoft has not emerged as a trendsetter in this new model yet,” he said.