Computers acting like televisions, TVs thinking they're computers, mix telephones into all
this and call it digital convergence.
It's one of the many trends that's on the mind of Bill Gates these days.
With his past speculations coming to pass, in the workplace and at home, you might wonder
what he sees for the future of the information age.
And now, the chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates.
Welcome to the Microsoft Plus program.
On this video, you're going to see some of the things that Microsoft is doing to improve
computing in the future.
From the very beginning, this idea of looking ahead and identifying trends and technologies
has been key to our success.
We think that some of these new things will be very dramatic in changing the way that
people work, interact, play and think.
Specifically, you're going to see desktop integration.
Using object-oriented approaches that we call Olay, applications on the desktop will be
working together in a profound way that will actually move data to the center.
You'll also see what we call at work, the idea of PCs working with all the office equipment
to make it easy to move documents around.
You'll also see our ideas about how this information highway, which will allow data to move so rapidly
from machine to machine, will turn the PC into a communications device.
These are very exciting advances, and they're just the beginning of what we think will be
happening in computing over this next decade.
You'll see the first advances where you now work the most, on the desktop, whether you're
using a PC running Microsoft Windows or an Apple Macintosh computer.
Now one thing that has not changed during our entire history is the vision that drives
us.
I wanted to use a few slides here to talk about how much impact personal computers are
having very, very broadly.
The trends that we identified back in 1975 are really in full force right now.
More and more computers on desktops and even in homes.
Now what drives this, of course, is the relentless improvement in chip technology.
We're looking now at not only 40 MIPS on a desktop, but 100 MIPS on the desktop.
I like to say, and it's now become true, that Windows runs on the most powerful computers
available.
With multiprocessor approaches and these very fast chips, even the most demanding commercial
problems can be run on our systems.
But even more importantly, the computer at $1,000 or $2,000 is getting so much storage
and so much speed that we can afford to do new great things.
One of the new great things more powerful hardware lets you do is create more compelling
information, thanks in part to advancements in object linking and embedding with Olay
2.0.
What I've got here is very simple.
I've got a document, a word processing document.
Of course, if I'm working on this document, I have all the normal sorts of word processing
things as I scroll through this document.
You can see it's a fairly rich document.
Images, text, all mixed together.
Some of the different types of objects are the ones that we think in a multimedia environment
will become more popular.
Right by this little coffee cup here, we can just click.
That's supposed to be coffee, but there's no guarantee.
But that's very simple.
What we did just there, of course, could be done in the original idea of Olay because
we didn't really have to invoke any user interface from the sound application.
When it was double clicked, it just knew transparently to run in the background and do its thing.
As we select objects, they take over the user interface.
So we take a spreadsheet thing here.
You might get whatever your favorite spreadsheet program is.
You can go in and make changes like you would expect in a spreadsheet.
It has the expected effect.
Everything here recalculates.
Even an object like this one up here, this graph, is affected every time we make a change
then you see the graph change.
Same thing happens with this graph here.
We select that.
We scroll the right place.
Then as we move this data up and down, we can see that link data works.
Now that's just two-way linking where we've established a visual connection between these
numbers down here and this stuff up here.
The thing that's amazing about it is we're doing it inside a word processor.
All of that's working very well.
We're in Excel right now.
In fact, here's the charting tools.
But if we click out on the document again, we're back inside the word environment.
Just to show one last thing that I'll introduce you to the fact we think there'll be very,
very rich information types.
We've got a video clip here.
So when I double-click this, there's no special motion video hardware here.
This is the software motion video.
Goes out and gets the bits from disk and just blitz them.
Fresh roasted coffee, will you help, please?
Fresh roasted coffee.
Thank you for holding.
At Starbucks Company headquarters in Seattle, they say roasting coffee is a lot like spinning
straw into gold.
Technologies like Olay 2.0 are solutions to the needs of Microsoft customers worldwide,
needs identified by us asking, how do you work?
One question people ask us is, how do we decide what we're going to put into these applications?
Where do we come up with all these ideas?
Well, the answer is that we get a lot of help from our customers in a number of ways.
The first thing that I would cite is the calls we get into our product support services.
We're taking over a million calls a year, and amazingly, over 100,000 of those result
in suggestions.
Now, every one of those are logged into a database that our developers look at and try
and understand how could they provide for that feature.
We also make special versions of the applications we call instrumented versions.
These actually create a database of the commands that users give.
We see how long people pause.
We see how often they get error messages.
We see which of the commands we've come up with that people never get around to using
hardly at all.
We think about that, and we interview customers.
We spend literally thousands of hours talking through customers.
What are their sample documents?
What's frustrating for them?
We boil that down into what are the key tasks that people are trying to get done.
Now, it's at this point we go ahead and start building prototypes.
We have some wonderful ways to make it really efficient for us to build a prototype and
do what we call usability testing.
That's bringing people into our lab where we can actually watch them work with the application.
We can see the look of confusion on their face.
We can see them pause.
We can cycle back and make changes in that prototype very rapidly and try it again.
And it's all of this, along with our understanding of technology, our intuition, that goes into
building these great new versions.
Just as great new versions of software come from customer input, so will improvements
in machines that you use in the workplace.
Now, At Work is a great example of an initiative that has hundreds of companies in the industry
involved working together using their particular expertise to deliver on this new generation.
We have companies who are the leaders in copiers like Xerox, the leaders in fax machines, the
leaders in PBX systems, because we also want to tie in screen-based phones that have voicemail
and electronic mail together in one place, and people building a new class of machines
like Compaq and many others building handheld type devices.
The idea is to not stop at the PC, not allow that boundary to define what we can do for
users, but rather to look at the way that all the office equipment ought to come together.
Today in the office, the closest co-worker to the PC is the printer.
The printer systems that will use the Microsoft At Work software technology offer fast printing
in an easy way.
The interactive graphical user interface provides you with feedback on the print process, like
how long it will take to complete the job and any troubles encountered.
Printing from Windows will work just like it does today, but even faster and simpler.
Now let's say you wanted to quickly send a file from a floppy disk, yet all you can do
is fax a bitmap or overnight mail the disk.
With these new fax platforms, sending a file is just as easy as sending a bitmap fax.
But now, the message originates on a floppy disk.
Security can be used to protect sensitive information and restrict viewing.
And you can schedule faxes to be sent during discount rate periods.
A mailbox on the fax machine lets you store your faxes rather than print them.
The Microsoft At Work software enables high quality, secure, point-to-point communications.
This software technology can help make the common telephone even more useful too.
Vital functions on the phone now have a graphical interface.
Transferring is just one touch and it's done.
Voicemail can be accessed visually.
Messages can be sorted and retrieved individually.
And messages returned with the touch of a button.
The Office Copy Machine will be a smarter worker as well.
How often have you gone to the copier and not known how to do a basic operation?
A graphical user interface can help this.
Advanced features can be made just as easy.
Have you ever clipped a story from a periodical using scissors?
Now you'll be able to do this using a copier.
You can preview it before you make your copies and add electronic stamps.
Fax to others directly from the copier using an online address book.
No more running between the copier and the fax machine.
This is wide area document distribution made easy.
If your time is split between the office, home, or the road, the handheld system running
Microsoft at Work software allows you to easily take information with you.
This Windows desktop companion also lets you receive information such as a news update
automatically.
Your personal information, to-do lists, and phone numbers are always available.
When away from your desk, wouldn't it be useful to have a calendar that integrates with your
PC?
Send messages directly from your handheld system when you're in a meeting.
This can include graphics as well as text.
When you return from the meeting, you'll have all the information such as phone numbers
and appointments automatically synchronized with your PC.
Easy access to information from PCs and office machines is the promise of Microsoft at Work.
Easy, faster access to more information from wherever you are is the promise of the information
highway.
I'm often asked about the information highway.
Microsoft is a big believer in the opportunity to connect machines together with this very
high speed data communication.
The idea that the speed will be so great that people can not only call up movies or video
conference with each other, but also get at databases, databases of government information.
They can reach out and find people with common interests.
One way to look at this is to simply think of it as the PC continuing to improve.
Many people have dial-up services, but the speed is so limited that something like shopping
or collaborating with a business colleague can't be accomplished.
Well, as those speeds go up by over a factor of 100, the idea of sharing files, having
a video feed, and really even though you're not in the same place, being able to work
together easily will be achieved.
This will be the first area that this will impact, not just video conferencing, but all
types of meetings and collaborations.
But the home will also see the highway.
In particular, because of the video capability, it won't just be your PC in the den that will
connect to these services.
It will also be the interactive TV, the device in the living room that will be used mostly
for watching videos, but also for multiplayer games, for interactions.
Virtually any type of purchasing or area of interest or all the things being developed
on CDs will be available across this highway.
And so this is an evolutionary development.
Year by year it will get faster.
There will be more databases you can call up, more great CDs that are being developed
today.
And eventually I think this will become the fabric of how people can work together far
more effectively than they do today.
What you'll find along the information highway is virtually any type of programming or information
you want, when you want it, like pay-per-view movies, quickly and easily.
Imagine having greater access to government resources and public services, like parks
and recreation, where you can check out campsites, campsites you can see beforehand, before you
register.
Or let's say you want to find out which fish are biting and where, before you go out and
bait your hook.
Another intriguing avenue is what you could call the virtual community.
For example, through interactive TV, you'll be able to tour an art museum with other art
lovers, complete with a tour guide, regardless of the community you each live in, be it Seattle,
Boston, New Orleans, or points in between.
Discuss what you're seeing among one another.
Vote on what to see next.
While it won't replace the real thing, it does open up your options, not to mention
your experiences beyond your own geographic region.
However you look at it, the information highway promises to be a well-traveled one during
this information age.
I hope you're as excited as I am about these new technologies you've just seen.
They're just a sampling of the work we're doing.
We're also very interested in keeping you informed now and in the future.
To help with that, we have the customer manager of Microsoft Plus, Christy Evans, who'll be
talking to you about this program in just a moment.
Finally, I want to thank you for your continuing use of Microsoft products.
Hello, I'm Christy Evans.
Welcome to Microsoft Plus.
We've just seen a few of the exciting new advances in technology available now and in
the not-so-distant future.
As Bill said, customers like you are playing a key role in defining these changes.
What you may not know is that you've already directed the development of Microsoft Plus.
It began with extensive customer satisfaction research, an ongoing activity here at Microsoft.
Many of you told us that you want one source to help you get more from your Microsoft products.
You want to stay informed of the latest advances in technology and be provided with information
that's appropriate for you.
Plus you want to dialogue with Microsoft and others like yourself.
And most important, you want to save time and money.
These needs are the foundation of the Microsoft Plus program.
Through the Microsoft Plus publication and forum on CompuServe, you'll have ongoing communication
with Microsoft and other members.
You'll also find savings on the things that you use in your everyday computing.
These rebate coupons are in the package that contain this video.
Also in the package is your guide to benefits and services, which explain all of the features
of this program.
Microsoft Plus is your program.
So from time to time, please let us know how the program is working for you.
Your satisfaction is important to us.
From all of us here at Microsoft, thanks for being a valued member of the Microsoft Plus
program.