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Gates has been MUCH MORE generous (and strategic) with giving away money than some rivals like Ellison or McNealy...He has access to 'the top minds' in India...
India treats Gates like rock star
By SAM NAGARAJAN
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Thursday, November 14, 2002
BANGALORE, India -- 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 yesterday by the world's richest man at the campus of Infosys Technologies Ltd., India's second-biggest software exporter.
"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 visits Hyderabad today 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. "I have often said India is a software superpower."
India's software and software services exports totaled $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 $9.83 billion, Nasscom said.
Microsoft is investing $400 million in India in the next three years, besides providing $20 million for an education project and $100 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fight AIDS. 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. Linux is "open-source" software, making it freely available to developers who wish to build programs using it, unlike Windows.
Microsoft says while Linux may be free, some applications have to be paid for, and the costs add up because users are learning as they go.
"There has always been free software, even 20 years ago, but the openness of Windows led to the PC revolution," Gates said. "The success of Windows has come from its overall richness."
Mamata Rao, a software programmer at Cisco Systems Inc.'s local unit, said: "I have worked on Linux for more than two years, and I find it much superior to what others offer. It doesn't crash and it's faster."
Still, the programmers who came to listen to Gates yesterday prefer the Redmond-based company's products. Wipro alone has more than 2,500 software developers who write code and applications based on Microsoft technologies.
Switching from Java, a Sun Microsystems Inc. product used in Web sites "to Microsoft's technology, was like switching from beer to scotch whiskey," said Anil Kumar, who works for Infosys. "Microsoft is more intoxicating."
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