The war over search (and its associated ad revenue) is raging on, and while most industry experts have placed their bets on Google, a recent interview with Bill Gates on the Charlie Rose Show could cause some to rethink the subject.  Bill Gates left his 9-5 position at Microsoft to become Chairman of the Board back in June 2008, but has taken on what Gates (2008) calls, “special projects.”  

Regarding the topic of search, Gates’ (2008) states “… [Microsoft] is certainly an underdog, but we have amazing people.”  Perhaps Gates is speaking of himself when giving accolades to his former staff.  Later in the interview Rose says, ” … they [naysayers] would look at missing search and not doing search and giving Google the opportunity as what? A mistake?”, to which Bill replies, “Oh, sure. That`s a mistake.” Mistakes sure, but Charlie Rose quotes Warren Buffet’s thoughts on Bill Gates’ business acumen, “If Bill had started a hot dog stand, he would have become the hot dog king of the world” (Gates, 2008).  This all becomes relevant when Gates notes that he is only working on key Microsoft projects and search is one of the primary ones.

It could be argued that Gates’ search work is revolving around the on and off rumored and actual negotiations to buy Yahoo’s search business, but what if Bill is doing some hard computer science work here? After all, Bill changed his title to “Chief Architect” at one time, which indicates his interest in the technical aspects of the underlying operating system functions within Windows.  With all of Gates’ attention on one primary topic (i.e. search), I think he could do astounding things—perhaps even more than when he was juggling multiple projects working 9-5 at Microsoft. If I were Google, at the least, I would have nervous optimism about Microsoft’s future role as a search contender.  Historically, Microsoft plays a mean catch-up game. 

References

Gates, B. (2008, December 22). Interview with Bill Gates [Interview with C. Rose]. In Charlie Rose Show. New York, NY: PBS.