It's all about software, says Gates
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Just before his farewell CES keynote speech, Microsoft's chairman reflects on Redmond's rivals and the changing face of Windows. Photos: Gates' last call at CES?
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InfoWorld - Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on Thursday sent an e-mail to customers emphasizing the company&#8217;s commitment to being interoperable and stressing that open source and interoperability are not necessarily one and the same.
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Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates touted on Monday Microsoft's plans to build a declarative modeling language that could greatly reduce the need to code.Speaking at Microsoft's 2008 Office System Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., Gates acknowledged work was afoot on such an endeavor, although he described the effort as a five- to eight-year project.With the declarative language project, the goal is to make programming declarative rather than procedural. "Most code that's written today is procedural code. And there's been this holy grail of development forever, which is that you shouldn't have to write so much [procedural] code," Gates said. "We're investing very heavily to say that customization of applications, the dream, the quest, we call it, should take a tenth as much code as it takes today.""You should be able to do things on a declarative basis," Gates continued. But this has not caught on partially because of weak data models -- first codicil and then relational. Stronger data models since have emerged, such as rich schemas around XML as well as modeling work being done by Microsoft and others, Gates said. "We're bringing the data models up to be much, much richer, and we think in that environment, a lot of business logic can be done in a declarative form. Now, we haven't totally proven this yet. We're doing a lot of internal developments ourselves that way," including some Microsoft business applications, he said."We're not here yet saying that [a declarative language has] happened and you should write a ton less procedural code, but that's the direction the industry is going," Gates said. "And, despite the fact that it's taken longer than people expected, we really believe in it. It's something that will change software development but more like in a five- to eight-year timeframe than overnight," he said.Top Microsoft Technical Fellows, including Brad Lovering, are working on the declarative modeling language project, Gates said.A published report has referred to the project as the "D" programming language being built as part of the company's Oslo modeling project. But Gates did not specifically mention the name "D" or Oslo.
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Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is fond  of saying this is the decade that the digital approach to  living will be taken for granted.
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The United States has nothing to fear from rapidly growing technology markets in China and India, Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corp.
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Microsoft Corp.  adopted a new mantra on Thursday, promising to work harder to make its software work better with other software systems and hardware, Chairman Bill Gates said in an e-mail to customers.
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.âMicrosoft chairman Bill Gates says he&#39;s never had a computer virus, but that adware and malware have him ticked off enough that Microsoft plans to do something about them.
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(InfoWorld) - Speaking at a lunch meeting in Seattle on Thursday, MicrosoftÂ CEO Steve Ballmer tried to explain the difference between the words "as" and "and" when placed between the words "software" and "service." In the midst of a shift in the technology industry toward using browsers to access remotely hosted applications, called "software as a service," Microsoft is promoting its own version of the phenomenon: "software and service." "For most people it's a nuance, but it's really important in our place," Ballmer said. To Microsoft, software and service means a balanced model that involves a smart client device, which could be a PC, mobile phone, or TV, combined with "smart computers doing work on your behalf in the center of the Net," Ballmer said. "So we're trying to carve out a balance." Technical decisions determine which components run where, Ballmer said. By contrast, software as a service often refers to Internet-based applications that are accessed by end-users through their browsers, without requiring specialized software on the user device. The difference between "software as a service" and "software and service" is important for a company such as Microsoft, which earns billions of dollars in revenue every year by selling PC software. Ballmer spoke at an annual luncheon in Seattle hosted by the Technology Alliance, a group started by Microsoft founder Bill Gates' father and dedicated to fostering education and an entrepreneurial environment in Washington state. Beyond attempting to clarify the difference between two very similar phrases, Ballmer touched on a variety of topics, including the challenge of developing products to be useful yet simple. "It's a great balancing act," he said. "A brilliant design gives power for those who want it and great ease of use whether you want that power or not." Never one to shy away from promotion, Ballmer said the latest version of Office manages that balance particularly well.
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Microsoft Corp.'s chief executive believes it's naive to suggest the software giant can eliminate all security vulnerabilities in its various products even though engineers are trying hard to do so.
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Microsoft boss Bill Gates tells the BBC that better security is the top priority for the company.
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At his Sunday-evening CES keynote, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft has sold more than 100 million Vista licenses so far. The number requires some elucidation.
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The way people interact with PCs will change dramatically in the next five years, Microsoft chief Bill Gates says.
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Bill Gates unveils plans to make Media Center software the centerpiece of the digital home.
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Bill Gates made the case Sunday night that its technologies are becoming even more flexible and powerful as they seep into automobiles, Internet-based TV networks and living rooms
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By Dean Takahashi, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  May 30--When Bill Gates talked about a new kind of computer in a speech a couple of years ago, I thought it was pure fantasy.
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Microsoft Corp.  founder Bill  Gates said on Tuesday the company's Windows Vista operating  system has received an incredible reception.
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Mobile phones play an important role in Microsoft&#39;s software plus services vision, CEO Steve Ballmer said Tuesday.Microsoft&#39;s software strategy a few years ago revolved around software that was either embedded on devices or burned onto CDs and shipped to users, he said. Today, however, software works in tandem with the Internet, which can back up and update the software.&quot;There&#39;s no better way then the cell networks of the world to make this model happen,&quot; he said, speaking during the opening presentation at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment conference in San Francisco. He envisions a time when software is wirelessly updated and works in tandem with services hosted on the Internet.But the software plus services concept won&#39;t be different for the PC and the mobile phone, he said. At the top of Microsoft&#39;s innovation agenda is unifying a variety of devices and applications. Microsoft is focused on enabling developers to create single applications that take advantage of phones, desktop computers, the enterprise environment, and the online environment, he said.Microsoft is enabling that in part by offering a consistent platform that developers can use to create applications for the PC and mobile phones. For example, a developer can write a thin client for mobile phones using HTML, Ajax, and, in the future, Silverlight. Microsoft&#39;s .Net and Visual Studio can be used to write rich applications for mobile phones. Microsoft also offers a compact version of SQL so that developers can write applications for Windows Mobile phones for database manipulation.The phone is particularly important in achieving Microsoft&#39;s unified view, he said. &quot;The PC is the most powerful device, but the phone is the most popular,&quot; he said. Particularly in the developing world where PC&#39;s may be cost prohibitive, cell phones may be more widespread.Microsoft is focused on providing software for partners to use and it is working carefully not to compete with them, he said. Unlike Google, Microsoft won&#39;t be participating in the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction. &quot;What would it buy us to own a piece of spectrum?&quot; he said. &quot;It would probably do a lot to alienate the telecom industry. It does not do a lot to advance our goal, which is to take some exciting technology and spread it.&quot;Windows Mobile is a big opportunity financially for Microsoft from two perspectives, he said. If Windows Mobile runs hundreds of millions of devices, that&#39;s a great business for Microsoft, he said. &quot;Also, I don&#39;t think we can serve our customers&#39; broad desire to bring together desktops, devices, enterprise, and online if we ignore the mobile area,&quot; he said.