By CATALINA ORTIZ, AP Business Writer
LAS VEGAS (AP) _ Bill Gates showed signs Tuesday that he
understands the Internet and other forces driving futuristic
technology, but he's counting on the same things he always has to
sustain Microsoft Corp.'s growth.
The company is going to pack more features into software, Gates
said, such as having programs adapt to repeated commands and make
assumptions about routine tasks.
And Gates called for fast technical advances in personal
computer design, a key to the company's business model because it
assures rapid obsolescence of existing software and forces demand
for new products.
His remarks came at the Comdex computer trade show, where Gates
is a regular keynoter.
They were billed as a new vision from the chief of the leading
personal computer software company. But he instead displayed
contentment with a past that has provided him one of the world's
largest fortunes.
Gates said the industry must produce faster chips, improve the
capacity of communications lines and improve the visual
capabilities of computers.
Critics have accused Microsoft of being slow to adapt to the
need for software to work with the Internet. But Gates expressed
enthusiasm about its potential.
"It will mean our industry will be changing the way people do
business, the way they learn and even the way they entertain
themselves far more, I think, than people outside our industry
expect,'' Gates said.
He said a homeless man he encountered recently claimed to have
his own World Wide Web site.
"That's such a good line, I gave the guy dlrs 5. For all I
know, this is a homeless guy who's got a home page,'' Gates said.
As has become customary for Gates, his speech had many of the
trappings of a Las Vegas show _ a stage set, live actors and a
movie.
By contrast, IBM chairman Louis Gerstner Jr., making his first
appearance at Comdex, held an audience's attention during his
keynote Monday by simply walking around a stage and speaking
without notes or teleprompters.
In Microsoft's movie, characters using a future version of the
company's Office software were able to see and hear each other as
they worked together on the same document on their own personal
computers.
The film's software also boasted "intelligent assistants''
represented by animated on-screen characters. These assistants
analyzed how people worked and anticipated their needs. They
offered, for example, more information about a subject from the
Internet and downloaded it while the person went on doing something
else.
In another example from the film, new programs would take basic
spoken commands such as "Show me this week'' and then display a
schedule. Future software also will transcribe spoken comments made
in a conference call and put together a summary.
Gates also showed off what Microsoft called
"project-oriented'' workspaces, which let people choose separate
features of different applications and using them as needed on a
single screen.