Rediff On The Net, Infotech:Why is Bill Gates not visiting Bangalore?


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March 4, 1997

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Why is Bill Gates not visiting Bangalore?

In 1977, Microsoft's balance sheets showed $ 3,249.41 in checking, $ 9,156.28 in savings and 505 in petty cash. Now it is worth $ 8.7 billion and co-founder William Gates III is the world's richest man, with his assets of $29 billion being 1.5 times India's foreign exchange reserves.

Now the world's most famous geek and Harvard's most illustrious dropout is in India, and between March 3 and 5, he will visit Delhi and Bombay.

His visit is viewed with interest especially since Microsoft set up separate operations for the Indian region with its head office at Bangalore.

In Delhi Gates met his staffers and some important clients. Among those he met are NIIT Managing Director Rajendra Pawar and National Association of Software and Service Companies Executive Director Dewang Mehta. On Tuesday he addressed a meeting organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry at the Taj Palace hotel and, later, another organised by the Indian Institute of Technology at the same venue.

On Wednesday he will discuss the `Social Aspects of Information Technology' at the Homi Bhabha auditorium in Bombay, an event organised by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. A few hours later Gates will interact with 500 infotech businessmen.

The richest man in the world arrived on a chartered British Airways flight from London on Monday, 15 minutes ahead of schedule. His first encounter was with Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram who is nursing a sore throat. According to sources at the finance ministry, Gates advised Chidambaram to free the controls on the Internet. India should go in for the Internet in a big way, the Microsoft chairman said.

Gates reportedly believes that India could be one of Microsoft's top five offices. One of his own staffers, Harish Naidu, has said that US companies prefer Indians because they imply low management overheads in comparison to equally talented Americans. Gates had even taken issue with US President Bill Clinton over an immigration bill that would stop foreign software professionals getting jobs in the US.

But, significantly, Gates is not visiting Bangalore, India's software capital, giving rise to speculation about the reasons for his visit. Observers feel it could be to strike a few deals and seek Indian partners, while trying to influence attitudes towards the Internet and computing in India.

At the World Economic Forum at Davos last month, Gates said India had the potential to be the world's largest software producer. The weight of his words can be measured by the fact that the share values of three software companies in India, Infosys Technologies, NIIT and Aptech rose significantly.

Microsoft already claims it has 75 per cent of the Indian software market and 85 per cent of the desktop software like Windows in the country. The Redmond, Washington-based company expects the Indian domestic software market to grow 100 per cent annually and outstrip software exports by 2000.

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