2000

2000 begun softer than previous years. For the 2nd time in my life, I was NOT with my parents, but alone with my girlfriend. The first minutes of the new year were spent watching what was happening @ London, and taping our private loud celebration @ Lisbon, which is also in sync with GMT. As some of you might know, I own a pair of PARADIGM Reference Studio 100 speakers, which usually sing Pet Shop Boys by the end of each year... This year I chose "Go West", from the superb "Very" release, already aged some 720 days, or more... Time does fly!

But some minutes after warming up the power amps and shaking the sofas, I got introspective. 2000 begins with too many barriers ahead. I have many projects in hands, all beautiful, but some very hard to complete, and all requiring loads of effort. Until the end of January, I must finish some of the projects, at the probable expense of gaming hours, web updates, sleeping joys, and other much regular needs :) Hold on!

Bill Gates @ LKL [Larry King Live]

Bill Gates was LKL's first 2000 guest. I enjoyed the live interview a lot! BG spoke about Microsoft - from the 1st days to his current 20% of ownership -, about electronic books, the future of commerce, and the chance there still is for someone to successfully grow a dream.

Nothing that Bill said was a surprise to well informed insiders, but the general public certainly didn't know about Microsoft's strong commitment to the e-book and his personal worries with Medicine. It seems that Microsoft has some medical related projects going on, and that Gates would love a healthier world - who wouldn't?

BG does seem to be a great person, and his reaction to the nasty comments of Paul Allen [from Netscape] were great! Paul Allen has a very negative attitude towards Microsoft - which is natural, since the Seattle company costed him the leadership in browser technology - and advocates that BG is the Satan [:) !]of the industry. Regarding such dark comments, Gates just smiled and said:

- Microsoft would never have such an attitude to others. Microsoft trades in a very competitive market, and does no more than the best it can, to satisfy its costumers.

From then on, he spoke very nicely about operating systems, why some succeed, why some don't, what are the risks and costs of changing an OS's interface, hardware demands and software support. It all made perfect sense.

The examples Gates chose to argue about the MS against DoJ case, were also perfect. I remember the references to IBM being 4 times the size of Microsoft, having over 4 times more people employed, and being involved in so much more projects, that its influence in the Computers Industry is much bigger than MS's... But despite all these numbers, IBM's OSs don't convince people and IBM's software don't sell as much, which allegedly proves Microsoft is really good on understanding what consumers do want. I might not convince you, but Bill Gates was really good explaining this point.

During the interview, there was RAP music playing on a tiny portable device, a mobile phone with Internet access, and a prototype of an e-book [with a 500 books storage capacity]. All these gadgets came literally from "under the table" and were presented as tomorrow's technology. My personal supreme interest goes for the e-book, currently struggling for a very high-resolution display, capable of the same comfort that you get from a paper print. I just can't wait for the day thousands of trees will be spared daily, and millions of thousands of square miles of storage space will get rid of the bulky culture :)

As soon as time allows me, I will build a MPEG video of the interview and put it @ the video section, for your download pleasure.