NEW DELHI: ".NET is to GUI as GUI was to DOS." These were the words
that Bill Gates had voiced at the cocktail and dinner organized for the bigwigs
of the IT industry and user industries last night. These very sentiments were
reiterated by him at a press conference organized to formally announce the
company's .Net strategy and the MSN portal in India. "India will play an
important role in our overall .Net strategy," he said. The India
Development Center for one, is working on a strategic technology piece of the
.Net platform and building a key product for it. This product will provide
functional frameworks for the .Net platform. The team will also be building
tools to enable the developer community to leverage the new technologies of the
.Net platform.
The chief software architect of Microsoft also announced that the company
would be investing over $50 million on the development activities of the center
over the next three years, and triple the capacity of the lab within the same
time frame. The investment announced this time is way better than the $1 million
that Gates had promised the last time he was in India three years ago–a figure
that was less than what he earned in an hour!
Speaking on the excellent work being done at the India Development Center,
Gates said, "I am impressed with the talent we have in our India
Development Center and the quality of software they are developing. The center
is making an invaluable contribution to the development of the .Net
platform."
Gates quoted the .Net as being the biggest and exciting bet that Microsoft
has ever taken. ".Net is about personalization, identity and notification.
It's about software. Its about making the PC dramatically easy to use than it is
today. This vision won't happen overnight. But we are working on it. Developers
are working on the platform currently and soon they will come out with
innovative products." Microsoft would be investing $2 billion in the .Net
program within the next two years.
Microsoft has plans for new products built on the .Net platform, including
new generations of the Microsoft Windows operating system, Windows DNA servers,
Microsoft Office, and the MSN network of Internet services. Through the Visual
Studio development system, Microsoft will also provide a framework for
developers to build next-generation Internet experiences as well as power a new
breed of smart Internet devices.
Another initiative that Gates announced was Microsoft’s portal MSN, which
will now be available in India as msn.co.in. The India specific portal will
launch with eight channels and over 30 content providers, offering news,
business, sports, entertainment and weather information. The portal will be
integrated with MSN Hotmail and MSN Instant Messenger services.
Answering a question on how much he thought Linux was a threat to Microsoft
Gates said, "The software market is competitive and Microsoft has faced
many challenges. Linux is one of the lesser competitors. Our main competition is
our own installed base. People comfortable with a Windows operating system would
not like to shift to another one, so we have to introduce new software with
upgraded features regularly."