Microsoft maybe one of the world 's best-known software companies but it is not as big as people think it is, its Chairman Bill Gates says.

In an exclusive interview in the latest edition of Business Voice, the Confederation of British Industry's magazine, Gates suggests that the company has not become too large and hints that the firm could double in size over the next five years.

"You might think we are the biggest company in the computer industry but we are not in the top ten. By sales or by headcount we are nowhere near the biggest," Gates admits.

"IBM has ten times as many people as we do and there are lots of companies that have three or four times as many people. And yet out impact has been much beyond our size," he adds.

Looking five years ahead, Gates expects: "There's a chance we could be about double the size we are if we do our job well."

"By then some great things like readable screens, wireless networks, handwriting and speech recognition will be quite pervasive," he says. (Xinhua)