Bill Gate$ Tasteless Showbiz in Shanghai

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Let's Send Bill Gate$ to Talibanistan!


Thursday October 18 6:32 AM ET (via yahoo)

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011018/tc/apec_microsoft_dc_1.html


Gates Shares Cyber Vision with Dazzled Shanghai

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Emerging from a cloud of dry ice on a space-age
set to the strains of the Star Wars theme and the cheers of a
thousand or so Chinese Microsoft dealers, Bill Gates hit Shanghai on
Thursday.

In town to give a series of speeches -- one to a gathering of
hundreds of international business leaders -- the pilot of the
world's biggest software firm gave a glimpse of his vision of the
cyber future at an upmarket Shanghai hotel.

An expectant crowd gathered as early as an hour ahead of Gates'
scheduled speech to beat security tightened specially for this week's
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (news - web sites) (APEC) meetings,
where Presidents George W. Bush and Jiang Zemin will meet for the
first time.

By the time the world's richest man strode out on the stage after a
build up normally reserved for showbusiness celebrities -- including
a big-prize giveaway for anyone who could correctly guess Gates' full
title of chairman and chief software architect -- the crowd was in a
frenzy.

It hardly mattered that his speech was peppered with murky
futuristic, computer code acronyms.

But after about 45 minutes of speeches and side presentations, Gates'
visionary XML mantra was on everybody's lips as they spilled out of
the darkened room.

Microsoft Corp must be hoping it has as much success with its less
glitzy message on licensing -- a huge problem in China's piracy-prone
software black market where the industry estimates some 94 percent of
software installed last year was counterfeit.

Piracy in the Asia-Pacific region cost the software industry $4
billion in 2000 out of total global losses of $11.8 billion,
according to the Business Software Alliance trade body.

``We invited 800 and more than a thousand people are here,'' a
Microsoft business development executive said.

``Our products are very popular in China, but our revenues don't
quite reflect the extent of their popularity,'' the executive said
with a wry smile.

 
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