ETRE Conference Monaco (1999): Part 2

This week, Computer Chronicles concludes its coverage of the 1999 European Technology Roundtable Exposition, (ETRE), from Monte Carlo with an in-depth interview of Bill Gates of Microsoft. [Episode #1712, First broadcast: 12/7/1999] Microsoft Most of Microsoft's competitors have stopped their gang-up on the software giant. Part of the reason may be because Microsoft's traditional attackers, Sun and Oracle, have their own problems. Sun Sun's Java has been very successful, but among JAVA developers attending the conference, the feeling was that Sun has mis-stepped with JAVA, as much as Microsoft has gone overboard with Windows. Oracle Microsoft's other nemesis, Oracle, has been struggling with its own repositioning to take advantage of the Internet. Expedia Despite the temptations of the Internet with success of sites like Expedia, Microsoft will stay focused on its core competency which is of course, software. Business at the Speed of Thought Bill Gates calls for a "digital nervous system for business" - a final thrust toward the paperless office in this book. Iris Iris' new Optical Character Recognition software not only recognizes words, it can carry through fonts, type sizes, and printing styles into an electronic document. The Iris software does context sensitive recognition in 55 different languages, even handling Asian and Cyrillic fonts. The software also recognizes tables and spreadsheets, sending full functionality back to Excel. StorEdge StorEdge from Exegetics, takes optical character-recongized documents one step further. Once you scan in a document and run it through the Storedge software, a searchable database for all your documents is automatically created so that you never have to touch paper again. You can even do electronic highlighting and annotating. Teledesic A start-up Bill Gates has invested in, Teledesic is an immensely ambitious project to ring the globe with some sixty low-earth orbiting satellites to creat