last friday i went to the Bill Gates Live in Singapore event organized by IDA at suntec.

although im afraid we still prefer Unix as server platform (for good reason, otherwise Unix wouldn’t occupy 85%+ market share), however it’s great to see Bill Gates in person. he is smartest businessman. and he is one of the smartest programmers in the world i guess. is he still doing any actual programming work? 🙂

many do not like microsoft products. i use firefox, seldom use IE now. but it’s neat to see the richest man in the world, isn’t? well, the nearest i saw him was at least 50m away, i was looking at the projector most of the time during his speech.

his speech was rather short, 20 or 30 minutes. not that interesting at all. invention of next 10 years will be more than all inventions in past 30 years, many equipments TV, microwave etc. will be connected, hardware is getting cheaper and cheaper, the core is software and we are working hard, blah blah.

no secrets, no sensitive stuff. CEO of any software company can give the same, or better, speech.

6000 people gathered at suntec, 8000 questions submitted. i, for one, want to know things like, what is microsoft doing to stop spams, spyware? not their resposibility i know. why Windows server is always the target of hackers, compared to Unix server? when can IE become bug free? when can users feel secure using IE? is there any backdoor in Windows that sends personal information back to microsoft?

of course, i never expect Mr. Bill Gates answer these questions straight.

human beings are funny. i knew i wouldn’t learn much at the event in the first place. how can he reveal anything really valuable in such public event? but i rushed to microsoft web site to register once i got the news. it’s not that i wanted to hear some secrets, it’s the idea that i was going to see the richest man in the world that excited me.

Mr. Sim Wong Hoo gave a very interesting closing speech, the made in singapore story, in which he shared strategies to compete in IT market.