[megri]

Google is generating the sort of stock market and media excitement that was once afforded to the younger Microsoft. The search engine firm is seen by many experts as trying to disrupt the market in much the same way as Gates once did with the rise of the PC.
But, while acknowledging Google as ‘a fine company, a serious competitor’, he is dismissive of the threat.
‘Which Google products are you talking about? Seriously? Other than search, which are you talking about? Google Talk? Wow. A total “me too” product. Even Gmail – what is the unique thing?’ he says.
‘We need to surprise people and do a search that is way better than Google, and we are very on top of that. The idea of development tools, a natural interface, productivity software – Google is not in any of those categories. People are acting as if they will magically be in these other categories with something more than a “me too” offering. It is kind of fun that people underestimate what we are going to do here.’
This would not be the first time that Microsoft has seen off stiff competition.
‘The number of times people have written our death warrant – every four or five years. Now they have a new person’s name on it: it was Netscape, it was Novell, it was IBM, it was Ashton Tate, it was Lotus. There have been many names. The old saying is – tell me where I am going to die, so I will be sure not to go there,’ he says.
‘Just as Word competed with WordPerfect and Excel with Lotus 1-2-3, we have had some fantastic competitors. IBM said it would put us out of business with OS/2 – what were they, 10 times our size? I hope someone has kept a copy of that for the museum.’
And he can’t resist one more dig at the world’s biggest search engine company.
‘Google is great, they are smart people, the press should continue to feed their arrogance as much as possible,’ he says.
‘They say they are going to organise the world’s information. Well, we don’t think that is our job. We think you need to get tools to editors and subject experts to let them organise the world’s information. There is a bit of a philosophy difference here. The only sure winner is the consumer.’

More here
http://www.computing.co.uk/computing...osoft-chairman