Bill Gates: Microsoft Office needs 'more than a tune-up'

Microsoft founder opens up and claims firm had its eye on WhatsApp before Facebook swooped in with $19bn takeover

Bill Gates has claimed that Microsoft's Office products need "more than a tune-up" in an interview in which he admitted the software giant would have considered splashing out on social giant WhatsApp.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Gates said that Office products have been so successful in the long term due to constant "tuning up", but said something more radical might be needed now.

"Office and the other Microsoft assets that we built in the nineties and kept tuning up have lasted a long time," he said. "Now, they need more than a tune-up.

"But that's pretty exciting for the people inside who say, ‘we need to take a little risk and do some new stuff'."

Gates recently stepped down as chairman of Microsoft and became technology adviser to its new chief executive Satya Nadella, who took over from former boss Steve Ballmer last month.

Ballmer admitted that one of his biggest regrets during his time at the top was missing the mobile boat.

Gates said Microsoft had its eye on WhatsApp before Facebook gobbled it up for a massive $19bn (£11.43bn).

"Microsoft would have been willing to buy it... I don't know for $19bn, but the company's extremely valuable," he said.

In his new technology role at Microsoft, Gates said he would spend about a third of his time at the firm and the remainder of it working with his charity.

He said the vision he had when he started the firm for there to be a computer on every desktop had panned out broadly as he had expected it to.

"[But] there are fewer robots now than I would have guessed," he added.