The Road Ahead
Bill Gatesí new book, The Road Ahead, proposes how new
technologies will guide the way we work, play and live in the
future. More than just a pipe dream, Adrian Finnis finds the revolution
has already begun
2001:
A Gates
Odyssey?
It is often said that if the past howls too loudly in your ears, you wonít be able to hear the future. For many, what has gone before either continues to haunt them or provides a cosy collection of thoughts which leaves the individual without the necessary appetite to tackle future challenges.
As you would imagine, though, none of these states of mind applies to Bill Gates ñ founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, the worldís most successful software company and one of the richest men on the planet. This bespectacled man from Seattle has almost single-handedly revolutionised the world of computing.
Gatesí past is a story of success which began at the age of 13, when he first began
programming computers to play noughts and crosses at High School. Back then, of course, computers were great hulking beasts which offered relatively tiny processing power compared even to todayís lowest specification desktop PCs. This didnít matter to the teenage Gates, though. What excited him was the ability to tell a machine what to do and then watch it do it even if, on occasion, it did take a whole lunch hour for the computer to complete just one game.
By the age of 19, Gates had met Paul
Allen at Harvard University and the two of them had decided to leave those hallowed halls of learning to face the harsher challenges of
the business world.
While the majority of people in the
computer industry at the time devoted their
energies to achieving success on the hardware front, Gates and Allen made a conscious
decision that they would pursue the software route and duly formed
Microsoft in 1974.
Platform for success
The product which built the platform for Gatesí future successes was MS-DOS® (Microsoft Disk Operating System), the most user-friendly operating system available at the time.
From that solid foundation, Microsoft
went on to produce improved versions of the software on a regular basis, but the process of having to type in commands to get the computer to behave as required meant that computing as a whole was still thought of as being strictly off-limits to the majority of people.
Because of this, Microsoft began working on a graphical equivalent of MS-DOS. The resulting product was Windows, the software package which truly opened the doors of
computing to the general public.
Today, of course, Microsoft publishes not only operating system software but a vast array of business, leisure and reference packages.
An estimated 90% of PCs around the world now use Microsoft programs.
What next?
All that, of course, is history. What matters
to Gates most now is the future. This is so important to him, in fact, that he has written a book about the subject. Entitled The Road Ahead, this is not Gatesí opinion on what will happen to the computer industry. Instead, the book puts forward his views on how new technologies will guide the way we work, play and live in the future.
Gates begins with a brief look at the
development of the information age, before turning his attention to the information
highway, which forms the main focus of the book. He envisages the day, believing it to be in the not too distant future, when we will be able to conduct business, study, explore the world and its cultures, call up any entertainment, make friends and show pictures to distant
relatives ñ all without leaving our desks
or armchairs.
According to Gates, the Internet as it currently stands is an important hors díoeuvre but the main course of the information highway is yet to arrive on our dinner tables. When it does appear though, it will provide for everybody and eliminate the hunger for information which currently exists the world over.
ìA direct precursor is the present Internet, which links
computers and exchanges information using current technology.
But todayís Internet is not the information highway I imagine,
although you can think of it as the beginning of the highway.
Indeed, we can no more imagine what the information highway will
carry in 25 years time than Stone Age man using a crude knife
could have envisaged Michelangeloís David in Florence,î
he says.
Personal services
One of the many beliefs that Gates holds is that it is not only the computer-literate who will be affected by the information age which is
currently developing before our very eyes. He believes that soon virtually everyone will carry what he calls a ìwallet PCî.
ìWhat do you carry on your person now?î he asks. ìProbably keys, money, a watch, credit cards, chequebook, address book, appointment book, notepad, reading material, camera,
pocket tape recorder, cellular phone, pager,
concert tickets, calculator, photographs and
so on.
ìYouíll be able to carry all these and more in a wallet PC. It will display messages and appointments, and also let you read or send electronic mail and faxes, monitor weather and share prices, and play both simple and sophisticated games. At a meeting you might take notes, browse information if youíre bored, or choose from among thousands of easily accessible photographs of your kids. It will also store money in electronic form and will eliminate the queues that are so prevalent at airports, theatres and other places where people traditionally have to wait in line for tickets.î
Education will be transformed, too. The texts of millions of books
will be available online, and multimedia documents and easy-to-use
authoring tools will enable teachers to mass customise a curriculum
for students who learn at different speeds and in different ways.
Teachers will be able to draw on this material and students will
have the opportunity to explore it interactively. In time, this
access will help spread educational and personal opportunities
even to students who arenít fortunate enough to enjoy the
best schools or the greatest family support.
Talking íbout a revolution
Gates also sees a radical change ahead for the world of politics, because the information highway will enable the members of our society to organise and mobilise themselves more easily. People of similar interests will be able to meet online and organise instead of having to pay for meeting rooms, transport and traditional communication costs.
It will become so easy to organise a political movement that no
cause will be too small or to scattered. The ease with which people
will be able to communicate will allow them to talk on a one-to-one
or many-to-many basis in very efficient ways, and Gates expects
the Internet to be a significant focus for all candidates during
the 1996 US national elections. Politicians themselves, meanwhile,
will be put under the spotlight more than ever before, and it
wonít be long before they can have their wallet PCs announce
the results of a real-time opinion poll from their constituents.
Homing in
The cynics among us may imagine that The Road Ahead is merely a collection of pipe dreams belonging to a man who has let money go to his head. Consider, then, what Gates is embarking upon with the building of his new house in Seattle. This construction will effectively become the testing laboratory and Gates and his wife the guinea pigs in a number of technological experiments which could affect all of us in time, because it will feature innovations which most of us may have believed belonged only in Sci-Fi films.
A visitor to the Gates residence will receive an electronic wireless
pin which will connect him or her to the computerised services
of the house. The pin itself will tell the house who and where
they are and the house, in turn, will try to meet ñ and
even anticipate ñ their needs. As the visitor walks down
a hallway the lights in front of him or her will gradually brighten
while the ones behind dim, and if there is a telephone call only
the phone nearest the person will ring. The house will also know
the visitorís taste in music, their favourite films and
how warm they want to be. Interestingly, all this technology is
available today ñ thereís no need to wait for
the next millennium.
Business matters
As you would expect of a man who has made his fortune by supplying software to the world, Gates has a plan for the development of programs in the future, and in particular for those packages used in the office.
In the future, work will be organised by
project on the desktop of the computer. Those projects will be easy to access without the
complication of thinking about directories
or wondering which application to use. Software will become tailored to the userís needs, it will adapt to different working styles and anticipate commands and automate
routine tasks.
What Gates describes as the ìpersonalised, connected officeî will come about by taking advantage of the revolution in communications which is taking place at the moment and which will have a fundamental impact. Very much a part of this revolution, of course, is the Internet, which will allow much of tomorrowís business to be conducted far more quickly and cheaply than ever before by providing the means to
create a truly global network.
Reaching out
As a result, companies will base the nervous systems of their organisations on networks
that reach every employee and beyond, into
the world of suppliers, consultants and customers. Innovations such as email and shared-screen video conferencing ñ allowing groups
of users work on the same document simultaneously ñ will become commonplace. This will not only change the way people work together, but also the distinctions now made between
the workplace and everywhere else. The
number of offices a company needs may be reduced; a large market for outside consultants will develop; and within corporations there
may not be a need for so many levels of
management.
Smaller businesses
Smaller businesses will also benefit because they will be able to connect on an equal basis with their larger counterparts. Employees can be alerted when their financial data shows an irregularity, or when a customer has a particular request.
The changes that are bound to take place in the way people use software and the dawn of a new telecommunications age will provide many benefits, but probably the most important is that of flexibility. People will be able to work wherever they are and still be in touch with their colleagues, whether they want to work as a telecommuter, on the road, on a part-time basis or as a consultant. Indeed, telecommuting will become increasingly popular, easing the current stress on urban infrastructures and resulting in changing property values and more efficient transportation.
Back to the future
As Gates sees it, the new tools of this information age ñ innovative
software applications and information appliances that will resemble
todayís PCs, televisions and telephones ñ promise
to change the way we make choices about learning, working, buying
and socialising. The onus now, however, is on each and every one
of us. M
ìWe can no more imagine what the information highway will
carry in 25 years time than Stone Age man using a crude knife
could have envisaged Michelangeloís David
î
ñ Bill Gates in The Road Ahead
The Road Ahead ñ about the book
The Road Ahead was published in the UK on
24 November 1995 by Viking. It is available from all good bookshops at a recommended retail price of £17.50, but is available in an exclusive offer to Microsoft Advantage members at £12.25 (see page 9 for details).
The book will be available in more than
20 languages in over 30 countries worldwide.
It was released simultaneously on CD-ROM and audiobook. The CD-ROM includes the complete text, hundreds of multimedia hyperlinks, a video interview with Bill Gates, video simulations of future technology and a World Wide Web browser. The audiobook is an abridged version and includes a question and answer session with Gates himself.
The proceeds which Gates makes from the book will fund a grant to encourage the use of technology in education; supporting teachers worldwide who are incorporating computers into their classrooms.