http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/2001/11/12/gates_pcs.html

Gates says PCs are not perfect, but sees big tech leap

By Peter Henderson, Reuters, 11/12/2001

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Bill Gates admitted it -- PCs don't work very well.

And he promised to fix that -- over the next decade.

Opening the largest U.S. computer trade show, COMDEX, Gates, the Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Corp., predicted that technology would eventually come together well enough to fade into the background and let users focus on what they want to do.

The economy would feel a boost as a result, he said.

"It's got to be a lot easier than it is today," Gates said, referring to the "laborious process" of fixing computer problems, fears of programs crashing each other, and the difficulties of actually using advances, such as Microsoft's software for Internet meetings.

"It has been too hard to set up," he complained.

Reflecting widespread mixed feelings within the industry in the wake of the Sept. 11 hijacking attacks on the United States, Gates optimistically predicted technology would roar ahead in the next decade. He said it would jack up productivity in what he called a "digital decade" and he voiced fears that shortcomings could allow the technology be turned against those it was intended to serve.

"In the decade ahead I can predict that we will provide over twice the productivity improvement that we provided in the 90s," he told the audience in Las Vegas.

But, speaking two months after hijacked planes destroyed New York's World Trade Center and damaged the U.S. Pentagon, Gates added, "We don't want our digital systems to have weaknesses that allow tragedies."

Although as many as 125,000 to 150,000 people are expected to visit COMDEX in Las Vegas this week, that attendance will be down some 25 percent or more from last year.

Viewers will have to check bags and trudge through airport-style metal detectors to get to the show, where top themes are expected to be security and wireless networking.

Gates promised tighter security in Microsoft programs, preferred targets for malicious hackers that have used the Outlook email program to automatically propagate computer viruses. He also pledged tighter integration with Internet sites so that data seamlessly moves off the network to where it is needed -- letting a credit card charge jump into an expense report, for instance.

Gates offered some hope in the midst of the consumer spending gloom, saying Microsoft's Windows XP multimedia-friendly operating system had sold twice as many retail copies in its first two weeks as any previous version of Windows, deflecting a perception among personal computer makers that XP would not noticeably boost PC sales.

Licenses had hit 7 million, he said.

Despite fears that homes and businesses were becoming saturated with computers, Gates predicted that within 5 years the most popular form of computer would be a Tablet style pad Microsoft and hardware makers will launch late next year. This is a notebook computer that also lets users jot notes and diagrams, as if drawing on paper.

Gates showed prototypes of Tablet PC, which he announced last year at COMDEX, and which he expected to be selling by this time next year. The tablets by Compaq Computer Corp., Fujitsu Ltd. and some other major manufacturers, included boxy pads with a screen on top and notebook computers with screens that swivel and bent backward to face outwards to look like a notepad.

Gates also demonstrated the XBOX game player that will go on sale this Thursday, extending Microsoft into the game playing arena, one of the most resilient technology markets in the current downturn.

However, he said home wireless networking and high-speed Internet would take a few years to reach most U.S. homes.

Microsoft's vision of a technological future where everything speaks to everything else, eliminating the need for constantly retyping phone numbers or to find a computer to get information off the Web, is common in the industry. However, competitors like network computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. say Microsoft's products do not work well enough with others.

Microsoft failed to successfully launch a pad-style computer about five years ago, which the company now says was due to hardware and software not up to the task.

Alex Loeb, general manger of the Tablet PC division, said handwriting technology had improved, but there was a limit to its use. "We do a bang-up job of for recognizing some people," she said in a telephone interview. "And for people who can't read their own handwriting -- we are right there with them."

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2001