Bill Gates has applauded Apple for its mobile payment platform Apple Pay, and alluded to a comparable NFC-based platform featuring on future Windows phones.
In an interview with Bloomberg, the Microsoft co-founder said that Microsoft "should do as well or better" as Apple when it comes to mobile payment technology.
Gates said: "Apple Pay is a great example of how a cellphone that identifies its user in a pretty strong way lets you make a transaction that should be very, very inexpensive.
"So the fact that in any application I can buy something, that’s fantastic. The fact I don’t need a physical card anymore, I just do that transaction and you’re going to be quite sure about who it is on the other end, that is a real contribution."
Gates then hinted at mobile payment technology coming to its own devices.
He said: "And all the platforms, whether it’s Apple’s or Google’s or Microsoft’s, you’ll see this payment capability get built in. That’s built on industry standard protocols, NFC. And these companies have all participated in getting those going. Apple will help make sure it gets to critical mass for all the devices."
Gates was then asked why Microsoft hadn’t already started using this technology, despite ‘wallet PCs’ and digital money featuring in Gates’ book ‘The Road Ahead’ which was released twenty years ago.
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Gates said: Microsoft has a lot of the banks using their technology to do this type of thing. In mobile devices, the idea that a payment capability and storing the card in a nice secret way – that’s going to be there on all the different platforms. Microsoft had a really good vision on this."
