Considering that Bill Gates is number two according to the Forbes list of richest men in the world, Microsoft has not come into the market for eReaders is not affecting him too much in your bank account, although it is an industry that moves billions of dollars worldwide. However, it was one of the first he had in his hands the possibility to check what it was an electronic book, but did not quite convince.
In 1998 a group of engineers Gates showed a prototype of eReader, but Bill Gates rejected the idea because "it looked nothing like Windows," according to an article in Vanity Fair picked up by the British newspaper The Telegraph. Gates also said that it was a device "unimportant" because he thought the touchscreen devices would never be able to compete with physical keyboards.
Gates told his engineers to forget about this project and should focus on other more important, as they rejected other ideas as to develop a system of microblogging like Twitter, says the paper.
Years later, in 2007, the first eReader, Amazon launched included a physical keyboard, so Gates was not misguided in their thinking. However, Microsoft also has yielded to the touch screens, yes, not for electronic books but for 'tablets', launching her own range of 'tablets' called Surface.
Related links:
- The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/9374751/Bill-Gates-ereaders-wont-catch-on.html).
