Microsoft ‘changes the world through software’
Vergnes trots out the one-liners at IDC
Posted in Business, 15th September 1999 12:47 GMT
Increase your knowledge of the latest threats to your busines
The modest title that Bernard Vergnes, the old-timer who has been put out to pasture as chairman of Microsoft Europe, took for his talk at the IDC European IT Forum in Paris was "Changing the world through software". Gates' vision statements that had driven the company were duly trotted out by his obedient servant, from computers on every desk and in every home [Vergnes admitted that in the early days. the "home" part had often been dropped], through DNS, and a Web life style, to Ballmer's more recent idea of empowering people with great software [40 million lines, for example], anytime, any place and on any device. McNealy said in his talk that Microsoft had stolen this slogan from him. Fortunately for Microsoft, the visions did not have to work, because the monopoly did. Another area for Microsoft where Vergnes saw opportunity was in teleconferencing: all those unnecessary meetings cost $56 billion per year in the US alone, he noted. The great future fields would be a Windows-driven Web-centric platform and a natural interface that allowed voice recognition, visual recognition, and handwriting recognition. We shall see. ®
See what The Register's experts have to say on application security


The future of SaaS and IT infrastructure management
The Total Economic Impact of Dell's PC products and services
The best practices guide for application security
Reducing messaging and web security costs with managed services

Win a Samsung C6625!
Is your cameraphone an oxymoron?
Reg Mobile and Wireless newsletter is go! go! go!
Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter