| Report from Copenhagen about "Microsoft IT forum 04" The annual event, designed to serve the unity of the corporate ranks of Microsoft and the dissemination of the latest technological knowledge in these ranks, as well as demonstrate to the world the achievements and intentions of the “software giant”, took place in mid-November in the capital of Denmark. A Vremya Novostei correspondent took part in it.
Atmosphere. For five days in a row, four and a half thousand people wandered in the mornings in a quiet crowd on the driverless trains of the Copenhagen metro to the outskirts of the Bella Center exhibition center, and in the evenings rolled back to sit until late in miniature restaurants with five tables. In the entire previous history of Denmark, the words server and windows were not spoken so often over beer. The forum was in no way reminiscent of the atmosphere of corporate parties, where proletarians are glad to have the opportunity to walk instead of work. On the contrary, the specialists worked, and intensively.
Organization. It was close to ideal, starting from the airport and ending there. Each participant was given a plastic identification card. I have never seen a more convenient press center. Access to a computer (individual user settings do not depend on the workplace), IP phones with very high voice quality, no queues or problems with attending forum events.
Gates. Have you ever seen Steve Ballmer (the CEO of Microsoft; it is he, not Gates, who now heads the company; Bill Gates is formally a member of the board of directors, the chief software architect) begins the annual ritual of giving a speech to his employees? The video clip of the Lezginka song, which Ballmer performs before shouting “I like this company” into the microphone to the delight of his colleagues, can be found in abundance on the WWW. So, Gates is not Ballmer for you. He does not have to dance in order to please the public, and his internal energy does not burst him to such an extent. Meanwhile, at the forum, Gates was primarily a part of the show. He speaks like a good politician - evenly, quickly, accurately, without a piece of paper. Looks older compared to her photos. If it weren’t for this circumstance, one could describe the impression of the industry legend’s performance with the words “a guy like a guy, there are a lot of them in this business.” Or, more accurately, “there are a lot of guys like that in this business now.”
Social orientation of software business. What Gates presented first was Rolltalk, a computer technology for communicating with the outside world for people unable to move or speak. It was demonstrated to the audience by the Norwegian researcher Dr. Moskvil, who lost speech and mobility due to illness, and seven-year-old Peter Cheffi, suffering from the consequences of cerebral palsy.
About the main thing. The main thing is what the creator of Microsoft demonstrated: “We make software that you use every day. We are aware of our responsibility. Stay with us, our operating systems can already do things today that our competitors won’t even have tomorrow.”
No one said these words, of course. But there is no other way to interpret the presentation of centralized management technology for keeping operating systems up to date on thousands of computers on a corporate network, and a story about ways to ensure data security that will finally be as reliable as the computers themselves.
Gates didn't say the "competitor word" Linux either. I didn’t say it, but I focused on those features of Windows (existing and future) that are important in comparison with Linux. This topic is interesting enough to return to it for detailed consideration in the following issues of the Information Society. Andrey ANNENKOV -- Copenhagen-Moscow |
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