Microsoft founder, Bill Gates admits that the ‘Control-Alt-Delete’ was a mistake. In an interview at a Harvard fundraising campaign, Gates discusses his early days building Microsoft and what brought about the Control-Alt-Delete.
The control-alt-delete function, which allows users to log in to Windows and access the task manager was conceived after an IBM keyboard designer wouldn’t provide him a single button to perform the same chore. “We could have had a single button, but the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn’t wanna give us our single button.” Gates admits.
The combination still exists in new Windows 8, allowing users to lock their computers or access the task manager. The control-alt-delete function on Windows 8 defaults to a new login screen and is still applicable on every device running on Windows XP and Windows 7
Although Gates admitted the mistake, marking the first time that Gates has so forcefully acknowledged that the feature wasn’t necessarily the best idea, he also defended innovation on the earliest Microsoft software though saying “We did some clever stuff, We were able to experiment with a lot of stuff, but more on the software side than the hardware.”.
Control-Alt-Delete isn’t the only recent mistake admission by Bill Gates. Earlier this year Gates admitted in an interview with CBS This Morning that the software maker didn’t take charge of the mobile market when it had the opportunity. “We didn’t miss cellphones, but the way that we went about it didn’t allow us to get the leadership,” said Gates at the time, before admitting the strategy was “clearly a mistake.”
Image Credit: Cnet
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