Bill Gates Predicts the Future in a Rediscovered Microsoft Video from 1994 – The New Stack
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The Future
Screenshot from 1994 Welcome to Microsoft video (via Computer History Archive Project’s YouTube channel
In a weird way, Gates misses part of the future, imagining a burgeoning market for software publishing but without foreseeing the ultimate prominence of online applications — and, eventually, data storage and at-scale data analytics. And “It was that ‘computer on every desk’ that led them to miss the smartphone,” quips one YouTube commenter.
Gates seems to be thinking about a world where we gather together in our cozy dens, enjoying space simulators and family-finance spreadsheets. There he is, wearing an earth-toned sweater and sharing a wholesome vision of making products that are enjoyable and useful and “draw in the whole family, so that these devices in the home are really something that are very, very worthwhile.”
There’s a comforting optimism in this moment, as the announcer concludes this segment on the future by saying cheerily that “The Microsoft vision of a computer on every desk and in every home — in this country and around the world — is becoming a reality.” Of course, what the video didn’t mention would be the release of Windows 95 in the following year, which in fact brought Microsoft very close to this goal, a goal that seemed radical then and quaint now.
With breezy corporate enthusiasm, the announcer anticipates, without a hint of concern, a world where “a vast universe of information will be at the fingertips of everyone.”
“I think there’s an absolutely incredible opportunity here,” Gates says. “And I think it’s going to be very exciting.”