Bill Gates met 100 chief executives and 2,500 software developers in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, where the Microsoft chairman was treated like a rock star.
"Bill Gates Live!" said the invitation to a speech Wednesday by the world's richest man at the campus of Infosys Technologies Ltd, India's second-biggest software exporter.
PHOTO: AFP
"Seeing him was like a dream come true, he's like an icon to us," said Rakesh Kumar, an Infosys code-writer.
Bangalore is home to thousands of programmers working for companies, including Wipro Ltd, India's biggest software maker by market value, who advise customers worldwide on computer systems -- a key constituency for the world's largest software maker. Gates visited Hyderabad yesterday on the last leg of a four-day tour.
"India has an important role to play" in software development, Gates told more than 1,000 developers at Wipro, a few hours after his address at Infosys, amid applause.
"I have often said India is a software superpower."
India's software and software services exports totaled US$7.56 billion in the year to March 31, 2002, according to the National Association of Software and Service Companies. They are projected to rise this year to US$9.83 billion, Nasscom said.
Microsoft is investing US$400 million in India in the next three years, besides providing US$20 million for an education project and US$100 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fight AIDS.
"As we drive toward developing new platforms you have the opportunity to become experts in it and we need feedback from you in matters of security [and] understanding the concerns of customers," Gates told Wipro staff.
Gates visit to India comes as Microsoft seeks to retain its grip on the market for computer operating systems, dominated by its Windows range of software products.
"The fact that Mr. Gates is here, besides his philanthropic mission, shows Linux is a force to reckon with," said Javed Tapia, director at the Indian unit of Red Hat Inc, a company offering services based on the Linux operating system.
"There's concern over cost of ownership, and people have a choice now."
Linux has been gaining ground in China, where the government has adopted it as the operating system of choice. Linux is "open-source" software, making it freely available to developers who wish to build programs using it, unlike Windows.
"I have worked on Linux for more than two years, and I find it much superior to what others offer," said Mamata Rao, a software programmer at Cisco Systems Inc's local unit.
"It doesn't crash and it's faster."
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
RSS