I think that Windows 8 is kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space.
Windows is probably the most important product in the entire PC industry. Everything we do in terms of supporting touch, new hardware, accessibility has incredible impact.
There are people who don't like capitalism, and people who don't like PCs. But there's no-one who likes the PC who doesn't like Microsoft.
I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we'll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people.
If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth - and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.
Just as we could have rode into the sunset, along came the Internet, and it tripled the significance of the PC.
As somebody who participates in the overall PC ecosystem, it's totally great when faster wireless networks and standards come out or when graphics get faster. Windows 8 was like this giant sadness. It just hurts everybody in the PC business.
In the U.S., PC-makers have no incentive to lower prices because it kills their profit margins. They keep adding new features like high-end retina displays and faster processors to justify their high prices.
We're responsible for the creation of the PC industry. The whole idea of compatible machines and lots of software - that's something we brought to computing. And so it's a responsibility for us to make sure that things like security don't get in the way of that dream.
The PC business is not about price, it's about value, or what you can give the customer for his or her money.
If it had anything to do with the PC or networking industry I was on top of it. I bought manuals. I read every book and magazine. Then I would get involved with industry conferences and put myself out there.
From an app point of view, if you looked at innovation on the PC, you'd be hard pressed to find companies innovating. The list is small.
When I see some of the work in the commercial PC sector, some of our top focus is in India.
You have to be very skilled in this industry. I grew in this industry; we created the very beginnings of this industry. We made the first PCs (personal computers) in the world.
A great laptop running the new kinds of user interfaces and apps that people now love on phones and tablets would be a big, exciting event that would help seal the deal. But there hasn't yet been a product that emphatically suggests the era of the traditional PC is fading.
From our perspective, there's been a price war in the PC industry since we opened for business in 1985.
And what we did with this new company in 1985 is we did start focusing on PCs instead of video game machines, because we learned the hard lesson about bringing a product to market in a consumer world where it's very expensive to build a brand and get distribution and so forth.
Over the last several quarters we have been growing faster in Asia and Europe than any other place on the planet. We have 18 percent of the global PC share, about 12 percent in Europe, and 8 percent in Asia.
If you think about the history of the PC industry, the PC industry has essentially been nothing but acquisitions by one company or another. Dell is the outlier. Dell built its own culture. They automated themselves to be the most efficient manufacturer.
If any PC manufacturer has made money selling PCs retail in the last 10 years, I'd like to know who they are.
We don't consider ourselves a PC company.
