Back in 2004, Bill Gates said hardware would become free. “Ten years out, in terms of actual hardware costs you can almost think of hardware as being free...”.

Wired went on: "Many of the holy grails of computing... will be solved within this 10-year period, with speech being in every device and having a device that's like a tablet that you just carry around...” And that handwriting recognition will become ubiquitous. This was at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo.

It’s been more than ten years, and nothing of that sort has happened except for tablets that you can just carry around.

“Best laptops in India under Rs 20,000” is the type of results I’m getting when I Google “cheapest laptops.” Same for netbooks, desktops, and — needless to say — smartphones. The only really cheap hardware I can see are substandard non-smartphones.

The only reason I’m surprised is that Bill Gates is smart.

So why is hardware still expensive? Is it the screens? Has the technology itself become costlier?

I’m guessing the answer is in a comment about Gates’ address, at Free Republic: “Agitator” said (back in 2004, again): “Right, and at the current level of increase of MS Bloatware, you'll need the computing equivalent of a Cray in 10 years to run it.”

Hardware will have been free so that you pay more for the software. And you’ll have to pay more for the software because it’ll be... bigger.

Or maybe the answer is in this one from “BigSkyFreeper”, again at Free Republic: “Hardware will be free, but e-mail won't. I'm sorry, but Gates is getting loonier by the day.”

Image source : wikipedia

Tags : Bill Gates