Chairman Bill Gates said that his company’s best programmers come from India.
We have done an incredible job of taking the features of new technology to 1 billion people, Gates said. But now we have to work on taking them to the 5 billion out there who need to be included.
The billionaire, who was visiting India’s technology center, Bangalore, also said he was counting on Indian programmers to write software that will help make electronic products that use broadband Internet available to the world’s poor.
That is the reason I want to reach out to Indian software developers who can bring down the cost of these products, not only for the growing market here, but for the global market as well."
The best programmers for Microsoft come from India, he told an audience of 4,000 programmers in Bangalore, the last stop on his four-day India visit.
Happy shrieks, whistles and a boisterous standing ovation welcomed Gates to the makeshift tent where he spoke to the programmers about emerging software trends and the role Indians could play in shaping them — using Microsoft technology.
Gates also announced a contest to find talented Indian programmers to join his team of personal technical assistants. The mostly young crowd, from various Indian outsourcing companies, broke into applause.
The contest is exclusively for Indians.
Microsoft employs about 4,000 people in India. Gates said earlier this week that it will add 3,000 more jobs in the country and invest US$1.7 billion (€1.45 billion) in expansion in the country.
Gates added that broadband Internet is rapidly changing work and lifestyle habits in advanced nations, bringing together video, music, entertainment, education and the ability to work on the move.
Prices of computers and electronic products had fallen over the years, while their power has increased, but future price drops and feature enhancements have to come from smarter software, he said.
Gates said he expects tablet personal computers and hand phones will become useful daily tools for entertainment, education, work, travel and communication. Software will increasingly move out of computers and into gadgets, he said.
The challenge, then, would be to make these digital products very inexpensive and very easy to set up, he added.
Gates said software would be the glue that sticks together cheap personal computers; broadband innovations, high-resolution screens and wireless control to take technology to the masses.
And here in India, I see most lively group of programmers who understand the computing revolution, he said.
Gates opened Microsoft’s global support center in Bangalore, as well as an electronic gadget fair.