We're looking forward to informative and fun discussion. Bill and I will look at the future, the road ahead-- or what will be, depending on what book title you like. We have agreed to focus on the bigger picture, further out, longer range rather than shorter range, stay away from brand name discussions and issues, try to see how it might affect our way of living, our lifestyle, our society. Bill will begin. And I will do the same. So let us begin-- Bill. GATES: Well, it's a very, very exciting time, in terms of giving people better tools of communication.
Actually, calling them tools of communication may not give the full import of what a variety of things people will be able to do with PCs connected up to the internet. I've created a new term, which is that people either live a web lifestyle or they don't live a web lifestyle. And what I mean by that is that somebody who several times a day goes to the web, several times a day checks electronic mail, sends electronic mail-- and for any new topic or anything they want to do, they take it as a given that they're going to turn to the internet to be informed and to collaborate-- that's somebody living a web lifestyle.
And very few people are doing that today. If you want to find large groups that meet that test, you have to go to universities, particularly some university campuses in the United States, where the only way you sign up for courses is to get on the web. The way you arrange things with your friends, the way you order pizzas, is through the web. And my view is that, as those young people move into the economy, and more and more people have that kind of experience, that those consumers will demand companies to use the web in a very, very creative way, whether it's for paying bills or taxes or selling products or simply just informing them.
I think we can already see that the efficiencies to be gained through the new medium are pretty incredible. One distinction you can make is that some people will live a web lifestyle in their office well before they do it as part of their home life.
There's quite a divergence in terms of the bandwidth that will be available to businesses in the near term and in the office, versus in the home.
