By skyforbes Happened to randomly find this article dated 1999 about Bill Gates saying: "that Windows offers far more functionality and features than Linux ever will."
"We put things into our system like systems management that's not that much fun for university developers," Gates said. "Linux doesn't have that stuff. It doesn't have the graphics interface. It doesn't have the rich set of device drivers. So certainly we think of it as a competitor in the student and hobbyist market. But I really don't think in the commercial market, we'll see it [compete with Windows] in any significant way."
Funny how things change in 20 years huh?