Yahoo! News Story - Gates Shrugs Off Criticism of XP

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The most important tool
ever created? Ever?

More important than the
microchip? Than the printing
press?

Than *electricity*?

Idiot.

Gates Shrugs Off Criticism of XP

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011025/tc/bill_gates_3.html

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Technology - Associated Press
- updated
12:30 AM ET Oct 25

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Thursday October 25 12:29 AM ET
Gates Shrugs Off Criticism of XP

Gates Shrugs Off Criticism of XP

By ALLISON LINN, AP Business Writer

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) - It's the week of Microsoft's biggest
software release in six years and chairman Bill Gates (news - web sites ) is shrugging
off criticism that his company's new juggernaut operating system is
designed to muscle out the competition.

Love it or fear it, Gates says, Microsoft's Windows is ``the
most important tool that's ever been created.''

``It's a tool for communications, for creativity - it's the
basis for the entire software industry,'' Gates said in an
interview in his unassuming office overlooking the company
headquarters.

On Thursday, Microsoft formally releases Windows XP (news - web sites ), a major
retooling of the operating system that runs the vast majority of
personal computers.

To some - including the Justice Department (news - web sites ) - Windows' massive
reach creates a difficult quandary. As Microsoft keeps improving
and expanding its dominant product, consumers may get a better
deal, but competitors face the threat of being squashed.

And as Microsoft's software and Internet services become more
pervasive, critics say so does the potential for breaches in
information security.

To Gates, Windows XP is simply about saving computer users time
and money.

``It's a value for consumers,'' Gates said. ``Why are there
headlights in cars? Why don't they make you go and buy those things
separately?''

It's also about money: Desktop operating systems accounted for
more than $8 billion of the $25.3 billion in revenue Microsoft
reported for fiscal year 2001.

Friends and foes agree that Windows XP is the souped-up sedan of
the desktop operating system world. It offers new features for
listening to music, playing videos, for editing and organizing
digital photographs. A new feature called Windows Messenger lets
users communicate instantly with others using text, voice and
video.

``If you look at the value of the stuff that's in Windows XP,
compared to the stand-alone packages you'd have to buy for the
equivalent, that's many hundreds of dollars,'' Gates said.

When competitors such as America Online, Kodak or Netscape
complain that Microsoft's built-in products threaten to squeeze
them out of the market, Gates doesn't flinch.

They are welcome, he says, to develop more alluring products.

``Windows has always moved forward by including the popular
things that you used to have to buy separately,'' he said.

Gates' no-holds-barred vision for Microsoft's growth has built
the company into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise and made him the
richest man in the world.

Gates asserts his company's products have driven the technology
revolution - not handicapped it as some critics assert.

He says that's part of why Microsoft has refused to curtail its
aggressive efforts to keep adding more features to Windows despite
the legal threat from the federal government and attorneys general
from 18 states and the District of Columbia who sued Microsoft for
antitrust violations.

``The PC ecosystem is very rich and we have a huge
responsibility to that ecosystem,'' Gates said. ``We work extremely
hard and we put out a new version of Windows every couple years as
best we can, and no legal thing has prevented us from doing that,
and I don't expect that it will.''

Although a federal judge ruled the company guilty of
monopolistic practices and penalty hearings open next month,
Microsoft has refused to put Windows XP on the bargaining table.

In fact, Microsoft has only expanded its reach. A new feature in
XP called Passport seeks to become the standard online
authentication system, storing Web site passwords, credit card
numbers and other personal information required to complete
Internet transactions.

Critics say that by requiring Passport sign-up to use such
features as Windows Messenger, Microsoft is coercing people into
giving the company personal information. Groups such as the
Electronic Privacy Information Center have complained to the
Federal Trade Commission.

Gates calls Passport a savior, not a threat, to Internet
commerce.

``We're trying to make the Internet more effective and allow not
just large companies to get to critical mass with these user names
and passwords, but let any company who wants to participate in
Passport just do it,'' he said.

Still, Microsoft stands to gain most from Passport. The company
is building a set of paid Internet-based services, called .NET My
Services, that will depend on Passport authentication.

Again, critics say Microsoft has incorporated Passport into
Windows so it can grow a customer base for .NET. They worry about
the security risk if Microsoft holds personal information on
millions of Internet users.

Gates dismisses those concerns, though Microsoft has suffered
serious security breaches in which hackers gained access to the
company's internal network - and may have even obtained valuable
source code.

``There is no new security challenge created by Passport,'' he
said.

Microsoft also is fighting a competitive battle for Passport
users against AOL, whose dominant instant messenger system
encourages people to stay within AOL's environment for shopping and
other online activities.

Gates accuses AOL of excluding others on the Internet; AOL
accuses Microsoft of doing the same on the computer desktop.

Meanwhile, Microsoft forges ahead with the next version of
Windows, working with a $5 billion annual research and development
budget. The company won't say when to expect the next upgrade.

``The reason we can find that $5 billion in R&D is by coming up
with new innovations, and so if we ever stopped innovating we'd
have no income,'' said Gates. ``So we do need to move forward and
our partners are very dependent on us moving forward.''

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Gates: Windows 'Most Important Tool' (October 25)

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