.NET is to GUI what GUI was to DOS: Gates

NEW DELHI: The Software Mogul and Microsoft's Chief Software Architect William Gates III arrived in India last night for his 36-hour whirlwind visit. Shortly after he landed, Gates was whisked away to the Maurya Sheraton Towers, where he first met 12 CEOs of top multinational firms. A CEO's dinner to mark the silver jubilee of Microsoft Corporation and 10 years of Microsoft India followed the closed-door meeting.

The silver jubilee celebration event was slated to begin at 8 p.m., but by the time he finished the meeting with the CEOs, it was 9.45 p.m. The function got underway at 10 p.m. At the event, which was attended by the chieftains of the IT industry and user industries, Gates spoke at length about Microsoft's .NET initiative. "The .NET initiative is to GUI what GUI was to DOS," he declared. He emphasized on 'collaborative computing', which, according to him, is the shape of things to come. "Microsoft is working towards technologies so that documents can be easily read and absorbed directly from the screen, including annotation, collaborative computing, form factors etc, so that users don’t have to take print outs and work on them. Users should be able to work directly on the screen. It should also be possible for users to talk as well as share screens so that real time communication can happen and true collaborative computing can occur," said Gates.

Sanjay Parthsarthy, Managing Director, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. kicked off the evening by talking about the various milestone events that had taken place in the 10 years that Microsoft had operated in India. He referred to the Windows 95 and the Windows 2000 launches where they had to deal with near riotous situations due to the great interest from people who wanted to attend the launch. He talked about the first order for 100 DOS packages that Microsoft received and their relentless fight against piracy, assisted by Nasscom. He talked about the excitement that Microsoft personnel continue to have despite 10 years of operations.

Gates fondly remembered the last 25 years of Microsoft’s existence. How the focus of the world was on hardware and not on software. Computer technology was restricted to the big users and developed countries. His vision that there could be millions of computers on the desktops and that high volume low cost computing was possible and that software was the engine to achieve that. He recalled starting with BASIC, and then moving on to PCs with MS-DOS. He remembered the difference in approach that IBM and Microsoft had regarding making available the operating system technology to number of manufacturers. The work on Graphic User Interface, which was introduced in 1985, became acceptable only in 1990. The launch of Windows 95 and the shift to browser technologies even when Windows 95 was at its peak showed Microsoft’s vision in identifying the future.

What keeps Microsoft going? Bill said that it was the excitement of having created the best and the most powerful tool that mankind has ever seen was the impetus for Microsoft. And, what sustains the same excitement is the fact that there is much more ahead.

Bill said that what IT has achieved till now is that the Internet and browsing has enabled any screen to be used with any server. And, this has happened through the use of TCP/IP and HTML technologies. But, the next challenge is where Microsoft is betting its future with the .NET initiative.

The next challenge is to find new uses for the PC. Photos, music, videos are all becoming digital and the technology must allow full power to manipulate these. Another challenge is that the present interface, the keyboard, will give way to newer technologies viz. hand writing recognition and speech recognition.

In the .NET initiative, Microsoft is working towards technologies so that documents can be easily read and absorbed directly from the screen, including annotation, collaborative computing, form factors etc, so that users don’t have to take print outs and work on them. Users should be able to work directly on the screen. It should also be possible for users to talk as well as share screens so that real time communication can happen and true collaborative computing can occur.

What the .NET initiative is working towards is to "eliminate the boundary between browsing and creativity." For this to happen, it is necessary to convert the Web from a browsing tool to a programming tool. And, XML is the technology, which will help achieve that. All future products will be built on XML and other standards around XML to enable top problems that users face today.

For example, two companies may be using different forms. The buyer has a different purchase order format while the purchaser has a different order received form. How do the two transact? They can--using XML technology, which will permit documents to be converted from one form to the other. This technology can be used within a company and between companies.

Let’s say that a website developer needs to have his site accessible through any screen, any browser, any Internet device, it can be done if the site is developed using XML and a software layer maps it on to any device. XML will therefore become the right tool for developing any website. It will also help users configure the screen the way they want. It will allow different kinds of devices, having big screens or small screens to access the information from the Internet. Thus, it is possible to move information amongst different Internet devices.

Another .NET feature would be to permit software agents to be used for intelligent usage of information. Software has to protect the use of the user’s time. Therefore, junk mails, interrupting cellphone calls etc, can be controlled by this software agent.

".NET initiative is to GUI as what GUI was to DOS," declared Gates. Using these tools, it is possible to bind the Internet in a collaborative manner and take computing to a much higher level. Information technology has delivered huge economic benefits to the world as is obvious from the increased revenue productivity of all the sectors. The next set of tools will further generate more economic benefits to the world.

Gates ended by talking about the importance India had for Microsoft and the world. He was especially impressed by the changes that had taken place in the four years since his last visit to India. Microsoft is looking at India as a source of development directly and through partners. He added that there was a tremendous shortage of computer skills in the world and it was India, which had foreseen and stepped into this gap.

Summing up Gates' address at the event, one of the CEOs attending the event said, "The talk was essentially a view of how IT will be used in the near future. It was not a 'broad vision' of the future, but an 'assessment' of the shape of technology and usage, primarily from the perspective of Microsoft.

Nasscom President Dewang Mehta, in a witty speech, thanked Gates, especially for the passion that he continued to display and the technological vision that he had. He talked about the tremendous strides that India had made in the field of software since Bill’s last visit.

Mehta urged him to spend more time than a mere 36 hours in India. In his witty self, he said, "Yeh dil mange more. And, we hope that by the end of your visit, you'll be saying, 'yeh Bill mange more!"

After the addresses were over, Gates, in a highly appreciated gesture, went around informally meeting almost all the 150 people present there. Stopping by at every table, he shook hands and chatted with them, leaving them enamoured by his charm.

Some of the IT chieftains present at the occasion were Saurabh Srivastava of IIS, Ajay Chowdhary of HCL, RS Pawar of NIIT, Ashok Patni of Patni Computers, Rajiv Arora of Datapro, Ashank Desai of Mastech, Pradeep Kar of Indya.com, Vineet Jain of Times of India, Peter Mukherjee of Star TV and Pradeep Gupta of Cyber Media India Ltd. Among the users, there were representatives from GAIL, Escorts, Indo Asian Switchgear, Stock Holders Corporation of India, National Insurance, Indian Oil, Ministry of Defence and many more. Among representatives from the government, included Regunathan, Principal Secretary of Delhi and PV Jayakrishnan, Union IT Secretary.