Gates: tech will lift world out of recession

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 22 May 2009 at 08:45

Technology can pull the US out of recession and help the world's ailing financial markets work better, according to Bill Gates.

"The drug companies will get back in high productivity mode. The software, IT revolution - we're just at the start of that," said Gates, who was speaking at Microsoft's annual CEO Summit at the company's campus near Seattle.

"What we can do for education, communication, and what that looks like for the efficiencies of world markets, we are just at the beginning of that."

"The opportunities for innovation are stronger today than ever," Gates told the audience, which included billionaire investor Warren Buffett, News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch and Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos.

Despite the fact that Microsoft is laying off 5,000 employees, chief executive Steve Ballmer also struck an optimistic note, saying the business world is only "coming into half-time" of the internet revolution.

He downplayed fears that the recession would choke off investment in technology start-ups from venture capital firms.

"The VCs are pulling back," said Ballmer. "The seventh, eighth, and ninth copy of the idea won't get funded today, but most good propositions are still going to get funded. There's plenty of venture capital out there, relative to ideas."

He said research and development spending was also strong. "I don't know anybody in our industry actually who's cutting their R&D budget," said Ballmer. "I know people who are doing a lot of different things, but most people are not slashing their R&D budget."

Microsoft's research chief Craig Mundie said in February the company was not cutting back on its $9 billion R&D budget this fiscal year, although some of the company's redundancies have hit the R&D team.