I normally restrict my coverage in the context of India. However, I found this speech of Steve Ballmer really interesting.
American technology was certainly at the heart of the innovation that played the central role in the process. The PC, the Internet, fiber optics: Those things were things that continue to keep America at the forefront of technology, and really at the lead of a growing global economy.
In my view, American companies aren’t going to be able to weather this economic downturn just by cutting costs either. You may have heard that Microsoft, our company has decided that we need to reduce 5,000 positions. What you may not know is that at the same time we’ve decided we’ll also create two to three thousand new jobs — mostly in the US — as we continue to push into new areas that require investment. [ In the analyst call he said he will hire in Search, don’t recall other areas.]
I joined Microsoft essentially for the PC revolution. The Internet revolution, we have the revolution of what I might call pervasive computing. Computers that are as thin and light as this on which you can have access to the world’s information will be kind of expected over the next five and 10 years.
Imagine, for example, an intelligent energy system in your home that’s linked to a smart energy grid. With that infrastructure, your dishwasher and washing machine would know to run when electricity is cheapest. That kind of intelligence and control could really have a major impact on residential power consumption, which is a very large piece of energy consumption in this country. [Just wondering if its his or Bill’s idea ;-)]
There’s always broadband. My number one encouragement to you is start with government itself. Every school, every hospital, every government building, is it wired, have we funded that infrastructure; very important. (Applause.)
And in the context of India, we still have politicians like A. Raja and Businessmen inheriting the license raj culture to be favored ; losing the whole vision of linking the Indian diversity, using the telecom infrastructure for rapid education, which will ultimately lead to its own innovation. Sigh!
The first time ever I have found Steve interesting after throwing chairs or monkey dance at Dev Day. Time to re-read his speech.
“There?s always broadband. My number one encouragement to you is start with government itself. Every school, every hospital, every government building, is it wired, have we funded that infrastructure; very important. (Applause.)”
This is not Ballmer speaking, it is actually Obama speaking. I mean Obama is driving the internet infrastructure into all govt. institutions including private healthcare, banks etc…. If this automation happens as soon as Obama speaks then it will spill blood on the BPO sector in India. No need of back office processing. Things will happen online .. BillGs & other internet pioneers web services vision will finally come true. No need to login to mutliple places to look for balances. All information accessible and available at any point with appropriate access.
This is what you’ll hear from the technology company CEOs now onwards.