Bill Gates suggests that Microsoft Bob may make a comeback. Not in the dog incarnation, but a digital assistant, similar to Siri but on a larger scale. I like the concept, but the implementation so far has been horrible. I want HAL, or even JARVIS (2001 & Iron Man references). With voice recognition doing better, and some voice playback (Siri is good, but still not the best) being pretty good, I think it’s getting very close.

I’d be very interested to see what the new Microsoft Bob would be like. Maybe pull something from the ‘very innovative but usually stays in the lab’ Microsoft Research labs. And I definitely cannot disagree with Gates with his quotes. Many of Microsoft failures were due to bad timing. Too far ahead of the curve and either the hardware wasn’t quite mature or the market wasn’t ready.

Speaking Monday at the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit at the company’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters, the chairman said Microsoft Bob didn’t get it right, but he thinks the concept will reemerge with a bit more sophistication. "We were just ahead of our time, like most of our mistakes," he said.