JENNINGS: And you say it keeps you on your toes, you have such a huge portion of the market — in all elements of technology. Is the tendency in the shop sometimes to think that we just can't be beaten?
GATES: No, in fact that's one thing I like about the Microsoft culture — is that we wake up everyday thinking about companies like Wang or Digital Equipment, or Compact, that were huge companies that did very well and they literally have disappeared. Got bought up, you know went into a direction that was a dead end for them. So we have that lesson and we are always saying to ourself — we have to innovate. We got to come up with that breakthrough. In fact the way software works — so long as you are using your existing software — you don't pay us anything at all. So we're only paid for breakthroughs. We have to make a new version of Windows or Office that you think is worth going out and buying.
Peter Jennings, "One-on-One with Bill Gates," ABC News, 16 Feb 2005.
