BILL Gates has seen the future of computing—and it’s the Internet. Just
weeks after Microsoft was ordered to slice its empire in two by a US court,
Gates has decided to make a beeline for the Net in a major shift of corporate
strategy.
This could help to maintain Microsoft’s dominant position, despite the court
ordering the company to split Windows from its Internet and applications
software activities. Many critics, however, don’t believe the company has
anything new to offer.
Two software launches in the past week and the demonstration of a prototype
touch-screen PC highlight Gates’s new game plan. Microsoft’s Next Generation
Windows Services programme, otherwise known as dot.NET, will give people access
to their data from anywhere in the world, via legions of remote servers. And
instead of buying expensive new software, users will rent it.
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In its second launch, Microsoft announced a new computer language called C
Sharp that allows dot.NET applications to run on any computer or Internet
appliance—just like Sun Microsystems’ Java does. “The fact that they are
positioning it as a Java-like language is a typical Microsoft move,” says a
spokeswoman for Sun.
Gates also showed off a prototype wireless Tablet PC, which incorporates
handwriting and voice recognition. To evolve, the Net needs machines and
software to be compatible with each other. Microsoft claims that the dot.NET
platform “will allow that to happen”. The Tablet PC has a single large touch
screen so you can use it as as a browser, e-zine reader, e-mailer or TV.
Microsoft’s rivals are unimpressed. Sun Microsystems is a long-time champion
of the benefits of network computing—and just last year launched an
“application service provider” operation that lets people run office software,
such as word processing and spreadsheet packages, over the Internet rather than
storing software on a hard drive. IBM—which originally commissioned Gates
to write DOS—says simply: “Welcome aboard guys.”
Sun’s spokeswoman is scornful of the Microsoft announcements, saying that the
company is simply playing catch-up. “This is just another vapourware
announcement,” she says, referring to the fact that the first dot.NET products
won’t arrive until the end of 2001.