Bill Gates 'not satisfied' with smartphone progress

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates admitted in an interview that he has been disappointed with how the company has executed its mobile strategy but is confident that the business is well positioned for the future.

In an interview with CBS This Morning, Bill Gates said that neither he nor Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer were "satisfied" with how quickly the company was getting its products out to market to stay ahead of trends.

Although happy with the progress Microsoft has made in breaking into a smartphone market dominated by Apple and Samsung, he told interviewer Charlie Rose that he wasn't as happy with the company's pace of innovation: "No, [Ballmer] and I are not satisfied that in terms of, you know, breakthrough things, that we're doing everything possible. We didn't miss cell phones, but the way that we went about it didn't allow us to get the leadership. So it's clearly a mistake."

In the same interview he also voiced his support for Microsoft's current CEO and reiterated his belief that Microsoft is prepared for the future under Ballmer's leadership: "[There] were a lot of amazing things that Steve's leadership got done with the company in the last year. Windows 8 is key to the future, the Surface computer. Bing, people are seeing as a better search product, Xbox," he said.

Last week, Bill Gates took to Reddit for an Ask Me Anything session where he had hoped to promote the work of his charitable foundation but spent much of the time answering questions about technology in general and Microsoft in particular.

As well as claiming to use a Surface Pro as his personal computer, he also maintained that Windows 8 was better than Windows 7, by saying: "Higher is better" and explaining that the advantages the new operating system offers won't be fully realized until hardware and apps can really exploit it.