Bill Gates uses Reddit chat to debate new role advising Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella — and he names the actor Melinda Gates wish to watch play Bill in a film.

What sort of counsel will Bill Gates provide in his role as adviser to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella? The Microsoft co-founder and previous CEO provided insight into his new job during an “Inquire from me Anything” chat Monday on Reddit.

“I be certain that we pick ambitious scenarios and that we’ve got a sturdy architecture to deliver on them,” Gates said when asked to explain his duties.

“i’m keen on how the cloud and new devices might help us communicate and collaborate in new ways,” he continued. “The OS won’t just be on one device and the info won’t just be files — it’ll be your history including having the ability to review memories of items like kids growing up.”

[Nadella’s priorities must also be your priorities. See Microsoft’s Satya Nadella: Marching Orders For Digital Business.]

Gates, who reiterated he’ll spend a 3rd of his time at Microsoft, said he was “thrilled” Nadella asked him “to pitch in,” and that the cloud can transform even well-established products, similar to Office.

He also identified growth in deep learning technologies as one in all today’s fundamental trends. “The final is computers that learn,” he stated.

As a seasoned media figure, Gates confined his Microsoft-related comments to abstract, high-level remarks. But they link to statements he and other Microsoft execs have revamped the last year in support of retiring CEO Steve Ballmer’s “One Microsoft” strategy.

Last summer, Ballmer sent employees a memo detailing his plans and the corporate-wide reorganization they might entail.

“Our machine-learning infrastructure will understand people’s needs and what’s available on the earth, and could provide information and assistance. We’ll be great at anticipating needs in people’s daily routines and providing insight and assistance once they need it,” Ballmer wrote in that memo, evoking the identical cloud and deep-learning concepts that Gates referenced Monday.

Ballmer elaborated in his memo, stating Microsoft will provide users a “deeply personalized [experience], in line with the advanced, almost magical, intelligence in our cloud that learns an increasing number of over the years about people and the realm. Our shell will natively support all of our essential services, and may be great at responding seamlessly to what people ask for, or even anticipating what they want before they ask for it.”

At July’s Microsoft Faculty Summit, Gates echoed all these remarks. He noted that the cloud has made “infinite computing and infinite storage … almost a reality,” enabling software to become “a strong assistant that may help us get things done, and help us derive deep insights.”

Last November, Nadella, who was on the time running Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group, told journalist David Kirkpatrick that Microsoft has the assets to be “a relevant infrastructure guy someday” since it supports quite a number SaaS applications by itself cloud service, which supplies it the point of view, expertise, and resources essential to become a cloud mega-provider.

What do most of these comments from recent months have in common? All of them paint Microsoft as an ecosystem-based, cloud-driven corporation. The corporate became the largest software maker on the earth when PCs were the stewards of our files and knowledge, and, with the cloud usurping a lot of these duties, Microsoft sees the way to maintain its world-beating stature.

But the remarks also hint at Microsoft’s controversial effort to chase consumers, in preference to fully throwing its resources behind lucrative enterprise services.

“If you are going to be in email, you are going to be in email. You can not say, okay, I only desire to be enterprise email,” Ballmer said last fall, adding that the opposite is to “be like Oracle and never take part in certain high-value activities.”

In his conversation with Kirkpatrick, Nadella gave the impression to agree. He argued that his company’s cloud platform, Windows Azure, has only become popular as an infrastructure service since it first supported a number of Microsoft products, including consumer-oriented properties similar to Xbox Live and Bing. This experience, Nadella said, gives Microsoft the insight to support clouds efficiently and at scale.

Gates seemed in high spirits through the Reddit chat. He advertised his appearance with a quick animated video during which he praised less heralded philanthropists and espoused the price of aid efforts.

He didn’t speak specifically to any consumer products, but his connection with “memories of children growing up” doesn’t sound like a workplace-oriented service. Rather, his words suggest an international wherein Microsoft services flow across devices, from the lounge to the office and everywhere between.

Moreover, the Microsoft leader’s references to machine learning likely refer to

Michael Endler joined InformationWeek as an associate editor in 2012. He previously worked in talent representation within the entertainment industry, as a contract copywriter and photojournalist, and as a teacher. Michael earned a BA in English from Stanford University in 2005 … View Full Bio

More Insights