There’s bigger opportunity for Microsoft in 2020 than in 1970s, says CEO Satya Nadella

Satya Nadella was in conversation with FICCI president and joint managing director of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited, Dr Sangita Reddy, at the 93rd Annual General Meeting.

Satya Nadella (left) and Dr Sangita Reddy during the virtual 93rd Annual General Meeting of FICCI | YouTube | FICCI India

New Delhi: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Saturday said that the technology giant has more opportunity to grow now than it did in the 1970s, when the personal computer revolution made the company’s co-founder Bill Gates a billionaire and one of the world’s richest persons.

Nadella was speaking at the FICCI’s (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) 93rd Annual General Meeting. The convention is being held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic from 11 to 14 December. He was in conversation with FICCI president and joint managing director of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited, Dr Sangita Reddy.

“I have grown up in Microsoft now, close to 30 years, but I go back all the way to 1975 to the creation of the company, when Bill (Gates) and Paul (Paul Allen) said ‘hey let’s build a BASIC interpreter for the Altair’,” he told Reddy.

Nadella was referring to how Microsoft co-founders, Gates and Allen, had developed a software based on a programming language called BASIC for a home computer marketed as ‘Altair’. The personal computer revolution of the 1970s had paved the way for smaller and affordable systems for people.

Gates and Allen founded Microsoft in 1975 and the company soon went on to become a pioneer in the personal computer market.

“The reality is in 2020, that opportunity [from 1975] exists with a much bigger opportunity now because we want to create technology so that every organisation out there in India and elsewhere can create their own technology. It’s not about celebrating our tech. It’s about tools for other people to be able to create more tech,” Nadella added.

‘Digital technologies have become more essential now’

Nadella has successfully steered Microsoft away from a failing mobile strategy. Under his watch, the company’s valuation has also increased to over 230 per cent, and Microsoft now earns more revenue from cloud computing than Google, according to a Bloomberg article.

While commenting that 2020 “has been a year unlike anything else”, Nadella also highlighted how digital technologies have become more essential to continuing businesses and services.

Nadella also said there will not be any boardroom that will consider digital technology as an optional thing which “is nice to have”. Business leaders will instead consider digital technologies as the “core”, he added, “not just for their future transformation but for their business continuity”.