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More praise from
Gates
NEW DELHI - Responding to
questions by Indian CEOs, Bill Gates, on a four-day
visit to India, on Thursday said that just two countries
– India and China - would define the future of world
business. In this context, the Microsoft supremo
wondered why is it was that India seemed behind China in
manufacturing, including manufacturing electronic
hardware.
According to Gates, India has all the
makings of a competitive manufacturing hub, in skilled
but cheap labor, good sense of technology and advanced
software skills to support competitive manufacturing.
According to Gates, India would probably have to find
its areas of opportunities in improved government
policies and superior infrastructure. He complimented
the Confederation of India Industry (CII) for its role
in trying to ensure that these inadequacies were done
away with.
Gates focussed on the importance of
technology in realizing the potential of India. The
years 1990-1999, according to Gates, were great for the
PC. During this time, the standardization of software in
the form of MS-DOS, Windows and Internet Protocol
empowered the masses through PCs. The next decade, Gates
suggested, would be the digital decade. The basic trend
in this decade would be towards allowing complex
business processes and activities to be conducted
digitally through a combination of hardware and
software. He warned that much hard work and development
of complicated software needed to be done before this
could be achieved.
For India, this new trend
would mean the creation of millions of high paying jobs
in software and other knowledge-based industries. India
could achieve this by furthering education (an area
where it has done very well so far) and by improving the
communications infrastructure leading to better prices
and options for the users. Software would reduce the
problems of distance and Indians would be able to
capture more outsourced offshore work.
The
software scenario of the digital decade, according to
Gates, would comprise the following:
A)
Digitization of reading: Whereby on-screen
reading, writing, annotation and note taking would be
digitized. It would also mean the digitized use of ink
and voice. Displaying a Toshiba Tablet PC, he mentioned
that the tablet form factor increased the number of
hours one could spend reading on the screen and brought
the use of ink into the PC experience.
B) Digital
media: Whereby any form of media could be easily
organized, edited and shared.
C) Trustworthy
systems: This would mean systems that would always
work, be fault tolerant and have auto back up and
synchronizing capabilities, and would be self repairing.
D) Streamlined communications: This would include
features such as one address for contacting, voice
video, screen call and information management. In short,
the screen world and voice world would come together.
Gates explained Microsoft's philosophy behind
digital business processes. He said that the philosophy
behind the XML and Web Services Foundation was letting
computers find each other and exchange information
meaningfully. Today, collaboration between computers was
a rare and cumbersome process, he said.
Gates
confirmed that Microsoft would invest US$400 million in
India in the next three years in the areas of
localization of software (with Hindi and some other
Indian versions of MS software), doubling of the size of
the Microsoft India Development Center and sharing more
business with Indian partners.
Gates also cited
three Indian organizations that had effectively used the
.NET technology: ICICI Bank for enabling complex
business transactions, Project Bhoomi by the government
of Karnataka for effective governance and Central
Depository Services for securing information.
(Confederation of India Industry)
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