Bill Gates criticizes the iPad

Count Microsoft chairman Bill Gates among those who are unimpressed with the iPad.

Gates said Apple's new tablet-style device is too bare bones to offer a full computing experience for most users.

"You know, I'm a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen, and a real keyboard—in other words a netbook—will be the mainstream on that," Gates said in an interview with business blog Bnet.

Gates said the iPad doesn't offer anything that Windows-based tablets can't do.

"So it's not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with the iPhone where I say, 'Oh my God, Microsoft didn't aim high enough,'" said Gates. "It's a nice reader, but there's nothing on the iPad I look at and say, 'Oh, I wish Microsoft had done that.'"

Though Gates isn't the only iPad critic—numerous observers have knocked the device for its lack of a camera, Flash support, and phone functionality—his comments might have to be take with a grain of salt.

Microsoft is, after all, aggressively pushing Windows 7-based tablets from partners such as Hewlett-Packard and Acer. Indeed, CEO Steve Ballmer demonstrated a prototype HP tablet powered by Windows 7 last month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

"It's almost as portable as a phone, and as powerful as a PC running Windows 7," Ballmer said at the time. "This emerging category of PCs really should take advantage of the touch and mobility capabilities of Windows 7," he said.