Bill Gates's top mistake? Letting Google's Android rule the world (The 3:59, Ep. 576)

[MUSIC] Welcome to the 3:59, I'm Joan E. Solsman. I'm Alfred NG. Bill Gates has owned up to his greatest mistake and it's sitting on the sidelines while Google swept in to dominate mobile. Gates said that mobile operating systems are really a winner takes all world and Microsoft missed out on 400 billion market opportunity. When Google became the standard non Apple phone platform. And it's true, there's just Android and there's IOS that's it. Where has that left Microsoft? For a while, even in the pc world it was Windows and Apple like those were the two computers that you can really get out there. Right. And I really missed the both there when I came to the Mobile market I don't know if they just didn't see it as something viable. Obviously we all know how the story of Windows mobile came and and went. But I think they had come in like a little bit too late I think had Windows Mobile came out first. We wouldn't be having this conversation. We it would be, you know, Sundar Pichai is talking about how they were said, Android further at the time or something Right. I mean, well, one of the things that Bill Gates Mentioned as a reason why google had that opportunity, was because of windows dominance yeah in that previous computing era, they were facing a lot of anti trust yeah stuff. I mean, for more than a decade at that point, when mobile started to arrive, yeah. Yeah, the same anti-trust stuff that google is facing now. exactly. Right. But yeah, it's hard to imagine how different the world would look if Microsoft had jumped on that train when it came. Right. And focused a lot more on mobile, seeing the potential that it had in the same way that Apple and Google did. Yeah, it makes you wonder whether or not having a duopoly but having one of the duopoly be a different company, if that would make a big difference. It's kinda crazy, the point that he made though, about how this is a winner take all ecosystem. Yeah, it's true. Because BlackBerry was around then also, as was Windows Mobile and Android. But it was weird that it was, okay, we're only gonna have these two. I mean, nobody set that- It was just, yeah. But the market responded that way, it was so interesting. > > Next up, in the US, FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks is leading an effort to scrub US telecom networks of gear From Huawei and others like it, those that are thought to be a threat to the country's security. This comes to us operators are racing toward deploying gear to build the next generation of wireless known as 5g A big topic of conversation on- It's 5G week. It's 5G week, y'all. The Commerce Department has blacklisted Huawei and several other companies because of these national security concerns. What do your sources tell you about how much of a concern these companies really are to our security? I mean, so most of the concern around Huawei is not around the phones that you can buy yourself. It's about them building the infrastructure and the networks surrounding it. A lot of US government officials have basically stated that we're always too close to the Chinese government for comfort, that if they do end up building our infrastructure that gives a pathway for the Chinese government to spy on users using that network. Huawei has Like completely denied this at all time saying that we are not giving information over the Chinese government. But there's a big concern that they don't have a choice if they if they if the Chinese government demanded that data they would get it from Huawei like based in China. Right. So The FCC commissioner, Commissioner Starks, his plan takes it a bit further than what others have called for, where they have. Others have generally just called for, don't use [UNKNOWN] equipment to build out 5G. Yeah. You know, going into the future. So Commisioner Starks basically wants to go back to 3G and 4G networks that already exist, and take it out. Pull it all out. The same way that you would take out like Building with lead paint or something like that. As a safety measure on something like that. We also have a new bill in the Senate that's seeking to take on big tech companies, and maybe add a little more transparency around how much your data's worth. What's this story? Yes. This is from Senator Warner and Senator Holly from Missouri, so it's got bipartisan support. And the idea is if you're a tech company that has more than 100 million users, you would be required to tell the users What data you're taking from them, how much you're selling it for, and what you're using for like who's getting this data and things like that. Yeah. Right now, yeah, companies aren't required to do that. I mean, Google and Facebook will tell you what data they're taking from you, but think about all the settings they have to go through just to see that. Yeah. And none of them tell you how much it's worth. But I can say this from other data sales, One person's specific data is not worth that much. I believe one company was selling it for every thousand people and their location data, it was worth about $9.50. So less than a penny a person. The idea is when there's millions and billions of people using it, that all compounds and adds up to Facebook and Twitter and Google, all these Internet giants. That's where the [CROSSTALK] The network effects. Yeah. Yeah, for these stories and others, check out CNET.com, I'm Joanie Salsman. I'm Alfred Ng. Thanks for listening. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]