Microsoft is keen to boost relations with Japan’s top students as it prepares to pump $6-billion into global research in the next year to keep ahead of the competition, its chief executive said on Monday.
”When I met Bill Gates (founder of the US software giant) 28 years ago he was just starting Microsoft and he was only 19 years old,” Steve Ballmer told a symposium at Tokyo University, Japan’s most prestigious school of learning.
”(So) we are always keen to hear what students are thinking and doing… the best ideas come from students,” he said.
Microsoft Japan already employs 44 graduates from Tokyo University and will hire another two this year.
It also works on research with the institute.
”This is the beginning of even closer cooperation between Microsoft and Tokyo University,” Ballmer told an audience of some 1 000 students and professors.
”In the next 10 years there will be more innovation and more change than in any decade ever,” he said.
By 2005, Japan’s information technology sector alone would be worth 16,1 trillion yen ($132-billion) up from 12,9 trillion yen last year, according to Microsoft.
In that time the number of Japanese employed in the industry would rise 17,1% to 4,1 million people, Ballmer said.
”In the next year we will spend $6-billion on research
and development and have 30 000 engineers working for Microsoft,” the chief executive said.
”No company in our industry will succeed unless we are unique with research and development. If we’re not being unique then our customers will go some place else.”
People would soon be able to video their entire life with a digital camera kept in their pocket or access the Internet through their own wrist-watch as a wireless web of communication devices such as mobile phones and personal computers gain in intelligence,
the Microsoft executive predicted.
By 2010, more people may read the Nikkei off a screen than from a newspaper, he said, adding all communication contraptions we know would evolve into faster, simpler, more connected, flexible and
dependable machines.
Next year people would be able to write on computer screens rather than using on a keyboard.
”The next 10 years will be fantastic and for those in the business it is a great time to get out there and make a difference,” Ballmer said. – Sapa-AFP