SEATTLE –- Bill Gates on Wednesday laid out his vision for the "third phase" of the Internet, but declined to comment on the reports that a federal judge praised a brief that recommends a three-way split of software giant.
Gates, who recently traded in his CEO position at Microsoft to become chief software architect, ducked all antitrust questions and instead offered his vision of the future at the opening of Microsoft's fourth annual CEO Summit.
Gates told the audience of 140 top executives invited to the firm's Redmond campus that he envisioned applications such as Web-based services and intelligent programs that harvest information and deliver it to wireless devices.
Microsoft will detail its specific next-generation software products and services next week at a separate event called Forum 2000.
Gates foretold of a world where paper books would become a relic of the past, and video-conferencing over pocket-sized PCs will be as commonplace as phone calls are today.
"Technology is not standing still," said Gates. "That will really have an effect on how we view this as a revolutionary change-agent. A lot of things are coming together right now that are going to make the Internet very different from the way it has been."
Over the next few years, he said, a series of innovations currently being developed will change "what is largely an offline economy to a real-time, online digital economy."
Gates described his vision as one of "bringing together these worlds that have been separate," and writing the software that allows them to operate seamlessly.
He said that there are still some technological breakthroughs that need to occur for his vision of the future to be realized: new, bright screen displays with high enough resolutions to make reading as effortless as it is with paper; moving broadband access beyond businesses and into homes; and "a whole new generation of digital wireless, so that as we walk around we have access to all this information."
Gates described the Internet's phase one as starting in 1995 with "typically read-only" websites that piped information about companies and products to consumers.
Over the last two or three years, he said, that has transitioned to a "real mania over transactions, essentially gross revenues over the Internet ... even at the expense of the long-term profitability models."
In the third phase, just dawning, he said, "people are saying, 'What does it have to do with profit?'"
In the new phase, Gates said corporate leaders have to refocus their attention on their "knowledge workers," who he described as key to the success of businesses as the changes caused by the Internet take hold.
"It can make a huge difference in the things that really count toward profit: great product design, great customer service, and efficiency in how things are being done."
