Microsoft chairman Bill Gates was optimistic on Monday that software and technology advances over the next decade will increase productivity in the same way as during the 1990s.

The blending of technologies such as "tablet" computers and wireless Internet software, with continuously improving hardware, will come together to serve computerized workforces and transform home entertainment, he told business executives in Madrid.

Gates last month showed prototypes of Microsoft's Tablet PC, a notebook computer that lets users jot notes and diagrams as if on paper.

"In the next decade a lot more is going to happen. ... The only winner is the consumer," he said.

Gates said the U.S. software giant had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in, and staked its reputation on, software for tablet PCs, which he said made computing more intimate.

News source: Reuters

"I think we'll double the number of hours knowledge workers will use their PCs," Gates said in a lecture entitled "The Digital Decade."

He saw mixed signals in the world economy, with the mood sober, but said Microsoft would continue to invest $5 billion on research and development, with a cash safety umbrella of $30 billion.

Microsoft's new Windows XP operating system had sold four times better than expected given the global downturn, despite spending on IT being disproportionately impacted, he said.

"I'm extremely happy at how those sales have gone. Putting man on the moon was easy compared to doing Windows XP."

Gates said that the company was in discussions with the European Union, after EU allegations that the company had abused the dominant position it holds through its Windows systems.

"We hope we can reach some sort of understanding as we did with the U.S. federal government," he said.

Microsoft, fresh from settling the U.S. government's antitrust case, said last week it would forego a December hearing with European regulators on charges of violating European antitrust laws.

AGGRESSIVE SOFTWARE STRATEGY

The company was instead focusing on a pure software strategy, with an aggressive level of ambition, Gates said.

It is continuing research on speech and handwriting recognition, to improve digital notetaking at meetings on tablet PCs. Hand-held organizer phones will also be able to prioritize calls to stop unimportant interruptions, he said.

But improvements in video technology would also mean meetings could be recorded and played back twice as fast as the actual event, making people want to attend them even less, he said.

Companies with different systems will be able to interact with shared software, he said, so that two people on the phone could navigate and edit screens together.

Hardware would not be a limiting factor and Gates expected processing power to continue doubling every 18 months for at least the next decade.

"The only hardware dream not being fulfilled is that broadband into people's homes is still expensive," he said.

Broadband offers fast 24-hour access to the Internet but has not been widely adopted. He said people had been expecting a gold rush with an overnight revolution from technology but that it was easy to underestimate changes over time, citing the widespread use of PowerPoint lecture displays now instead of slides.



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