Bill Gates' briefing to the BCS Elite group left his
audience of IT leaders impressed by his vision of the future and
frustrated that the Microsoft chairman did not talk more about the
UK's corporate IT agenda.
David Roberts, chief executive of user group the Corporate IT
Forum, said Gates' address held out the prospect of "another
mountain of change" for corporate users to deal with in the years
ahead.
He said he would have liked to have heard more from Gates about
how Microsoft intended to manage expectations about upgrade cycles,
since its product lifecycle seemed to be working to a shorter
timescale than most corporate IT refresh plans.
Philip Virgo, strategic adviser at the Institute for the
Management of Information Systems, said Gates had come back time
and again to the issue of security and authentication across
platforms, but Microsoft had been slow in adopting some platforms
and would need to rise to the challenge.
He said the Elite group was an audience that wanted Microsoft to
achieve its aims in bringing platforms together more
seamlessly.
David Rippon, IT director of the University of London Computer
Centre, was surprised Gates did not talk more about open source.
"This must have an impact on Microsoft but it was not mentioned,"
he said.
David Tidey, IT director of Kensington and Chelsea council, was
enthused by Gates' vision of Sharepoint as a future means of
bringing together platforms. "We are a big Microsoft shop and this
has confirmed that Sharepoint is a key tool and that I am going in
the right direction.
"I liked the concept that he was thinking from the user
perspective rather than the device perspective. I hope it can be
delivered - it is a challenge for Microsoft," he said.
Gates spells out future >>