Gates Talks On Facing Technology Challenges

He forecast that by the end of what he termed "the digital decade," between 2000 and 2009, all the scenarios for automation of business and home life that are just beginning will be commonplace. This will be enabled, Mr. Gates noted, by advances in chips, connectivity, and computing devices.

All of this is likely to impact insurers not only in covering homes and businesses, but as users of technology as well.

Many functions that are currently done manually will be done in digital form by 2010, he noted. "There's a lot of hard work to be done to build a foundation for that," he added, noting that many tech initiatives will require "literally tens of billions of dollars to be spent. This is the task we're all engaged in."

"Personal computing is not just sitting in front of that desktop PC," Mr. Gates continued. "That's very important, but that's just a piece of what we'll do. The magic of the chip and [advances in] software are now spreading out to all kinds of devices, connecting in different ways. All of these will come together."

Mr. Gates pointed out that the idea of personal computing is now "far broader than ever before." Systems can connect automatically, yielding greater productivity, he said.

"Last year, there were a lot of highs and a lot of lows. It was a tumultuous year, a tough year, a year to test the people with long-term commitment, a year to test which innovations really meet the demanding requirements customers have in this kind of environment," said Mr. Gates. He added that it will require new advances "to deliver in both the dimension of improved costs and the dimension of improved capabilities."

Mr. Gates characterized some technology developments as "a big surprise on the positive side," pointing to what, he said, is continued improvement in price performance and storage capacity.

Speaking of storage, he noted that "[PC hard] disks have moved from a megabyte to 10 gigabytes [in capacity]. By the end of the decade, a terabyte will be the typical storage on a personal computing device." He also cited advances in wireless technologies, helped by "easy and inexpensive connections to get high-speed capabilities."

Mr. Gates also spoke of significant gains in server performance. "It's clear now that you can buy industry standard Intel/Windows-type servers and get performance that in the past you would have had to pay five-to-10 times as much for," he noted.

However, "on the more sober side, there are a number of things that have made this a tough year," Mr. Gates asserted. One negative factor, he said, is a more conservative attitude toward capital investments, particularly in IT spending, as well as the overall economic climate.

To read Mr. Trembly's full account read the Nov. 25 print edition of National Underwriter.