'The world will be a smaller place'

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates predicted that software engineers working for the Redmond giant would be turning out solutions that would not only improve the operating system (OS) of a PC, but revolutionise mobile phones, advertising, home entertainment and the internet before 2010 kicks in.

Addressing Asian ministers and delegates from the Asian region at the Government Leaders Forum in the Capital here, Mr Gates said these killer apps would not only make software all-pervasive, but also usher in a service-based approach to software delivery.

“Four years from now, the mobile phone would become totally software-driven.” The mobile phone would provide any and every information you would perceive important in a ‘virtual reality’ mode — driving down a road you could have a map. It won’t be a graphical representation, but complete with pictures of buildings and roads. The software would track any ‘contact’ of yours who is in the area and alert you.

Thanks to this intelligent software, the phone would morph into a credit card of sorts with all transactions conducted seamlessly and electronically: Got a bill at the hotel, just get the phone to read it and make the payment from your bank. Did someone give you his business card, just hold it up to the mobile screen, it would read and add the details to your contact list. “Those phone numbers are destined to go the way of musical records and films,” he added.

As for PCs, they would still be around, as a “full screen” device. However judging by the pilots going on with Microsoft’s Tablet PC, (a Windows XP OS equipped with a sensitive screen and a complementary pen for laptops), Mr Gates forecasts that it would completely change the way students learn with revolutionary “curriculum software.” As for video broadcasts, he is certain it would move to the Net and the progress of Microsoft’s IPTV that has already rolled out the software platform to deliver broadcast-quality video and new integrated TV services over broadband networks is testimony to the shape of things to come, he said.

Mr Gates said several enterprises in India had approached him on this. He has discussed IPTV with Reliance Infocomm chief Anil Ambani with whom he had entered into an agreement some years ago.

Promising ‘targeted advertising’ through intelligent software solutions and exciting broadband applications for the recently launched X-box game and entertainment console, the software sultan said there would be a radical change in the delivery of these applications that would jump on to the service-based approach. “The world will be a smaller place,” he said, betting on the software centricity of all work, communication and entertainment needs.