The Hindu Business Line : India, China dominate Gates, Friedman talks at Davos meet

MICROSOFT'S breakfast session at the World Economic Forum in Davos saw Mr Bill Gates in conversation with Mr Tom Friedman, media personality and co-author of the book, The World is Flat. The duo took forward their `world is flat theory' and discussed issues pertaining to technology, foreign policy, education and development, especially in the wake of the growing influence of China and India in the global business process.

Mr Gates showed great optimism on the business potential offered by India and China and continuously referred to them as regions where tremendous change was taking place in all spheres. He said while China had a very high penetration of communications technology, the Indian market was growing. According to him, the challenge in India was to take the latest technology being developed even to the villages in the country.

Touching upon the contentious issue of intellectual property rights, he said although a large number of software users in India and China may not be paying for these products, sales were increasing in the region and that Microsoft was very much there to stay.

Bangalore also came in for comment from the duo, as Mr Friedman recalled his experiences there. He said that Bangalore had its islands of high technology, but a few hours out of the city took you back several centuries. Mr Gates referred to the vast pool of talent in India and China and said India had "brilliant people", a pool that his company was tapping even for its operations in the US.

Mr Gates said relocating business to the Asian economies had worked in the company's favour and had helped reduce communication research costs, adding that Microsoft's research centre in China had become the most productive location for the company. "The equilibrium is just fine,'' he said, referring to the Chinese censorship issue where Google and Yahoo have had to bow to Chinese censorship rules. "Companies have to decide whether they want to be part of that market," he said.

Mr Friedman spoke about the education crisis in the US with a failure of high schools. Elaborating on what the Bill Gates Foundation was doing in this sphere in the US and referring to the quality of higher education improving in China, he said we could expect Beijing or Shanghai to be part of the top 25 education destinations in the future. He also referred to India's IITs.

Answering a question on whether a flat world meant flattening and fragmenting or flattening and unifying, Mr Gates expressed amazement at how countries were globalising locally and even selling their local products through e-bay. He felt that a flat world would mean increasing diversity.