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Follow UsNarayanan Madhavan
NEW DELHI: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates asserted on Thursday his software
company, which has dominated the age of personal computers, is geared to face a
chaotic change of rules in the Internet age.
Gates, who was on a day-long Indian visit to boost his company's Internet
strategy, told Reuters in a telephone interview that he was not worried about
the shift from the PC days, when his company owned a huge number of
applications.
"The more the better. That's why the investments we make to make it
easier to do those things (applications) are ever more important," he said.
Gates, chased by photographers, arrived to a tumultuous welcome three years
after his last visit to the nation, which is banking on a software boom to power
economic growth.
"Gates logs on to India again," the Times of India said in its
front-page headline.
It carried a computer-engineered picture of Gates shaking hands with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who is currently visiting the United States.
For the Seattle-based tycoon, the richest man in the world with an estimated
wealth of $50 billion, India is a crucial hunting ground for skills, ideas and a
growing market.
In the Internet age, industry experts expect software to be rented over
networks and paid for by usage, and also see an explosion in applications built
on standards that no one owns.
Investments in startups and developers
Microsoft has for two decades ruled over a PC empire centered on its proprietary
operating systems software, DOS and Windows.
The company became the world's largest in its industry by wooing developers,
with which it shared technology hooks to make end-user software but not the
source code of its platform.
"You know that the vision always was that there would be more and more
applications," Gates said. "Now we are moving into a pace at which it
can explode."
Over the next three years, Microsoft plans to invest $2 billion to enable
industry partners, independent developers and corporate users to build .Net
services.
Gates was scheduled to address Indian technology leaders and developers later
on Thursday. Microsoft has hundreds of Indian software engineers on its rolls in
Seattle, and a development center in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.
He was also due to address a dozen state-level leaders in an expected
pleading for "e-governance".
Gates made way for Steve Ballmer to be the company's chief executive officer
so he could stay focused as the chief software architect for .Net, which
analysts say is critical for the company to reinvent itself.
Increasingly, markets are conscious that Microsoft cannot rely on owning key
brands and technologies to drive growth.
Microsoft now hopes to make and sell a suite of components, technologies and
services as a means to make end-use applications which in large measures would
be made by independent developers and run on a variety of digital devices.
Asked how important independent developers and startups, especially in India,
were to Microsoft, Gates said they were critical to the company's partnerships
for success.
"They are totally critical to our strategy from our beginning. And...it’s
the same that it always was (and) one of the things that Microsoft is the best
at," Gates said.
Microsoft was scheduled to announce an alliance with Indian software services
leader Infosys Technologies Ltd. later on Thursday. Gates said he would
elaborate on the project at his news conference.
(C) Reuters Limited 2000.