On June 15, 1999 Bill Gates testified before the United States Congress via the Joint Economic Committee at an event called “The High-Tech Summit.” The propose of this event was for the Congress to learn about where the future of computing was going. At the time, Senator Rick Santorum was the Joint Economic Committee. Senator Satorum invited me and four other student interns at Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center to prepare questions for Mr. Gates. At Mr. Gates’ request, we prepared ten questions in advance in which Mr. Gates and/or his staff would select. I specifically recall that there were questions that mentioned Linux but those were not selected. Instead, Mr. Gates was most interested in telling the American government and people how Microsoft was going to be a major player the future of computing. The full transcript is available at microsoft.com.

Ten years later I find something particularly insightful that Mr.
Gates predicted…

“Wherever you are, you’ll be able to access your own digital
dashboard — the set of information that you care about on any screen,
from a PC to that small pocket device. Microsoft and thousands of other
companies are advancing the software that makes this possible. We’ll
spend next year about $3 billion on research and development. One day
in the not-too-distant future that software will allow computers to
see, to listen, and to speak. At home or in the office, you’ll be able
to talk to your PC, to dictate a document or to simply ask for the
information that you care about.”

On November 7, 2009, I purchased that very device that finally lives up to the promise of true hand-held voice-activated computing which delivers all of the information I care about: I bought a Verizon Google Android Motorola phone.

Twelve years after Bill Gates’ fateful testimony at the High-Tech Summit, Microsoft will lack majority market share.