Gates Pitches Collaboration, Security to CEOs

Collaboration, security, and workflow were among the themes of Microsoft’s eighth annual CEO Summit in May 2004. Chief Software Architect Bill Gates delivered a keynote speech about Microsoft’s long-term vision for driving IT innovation, with an emphasis on Microsoft products and technologies that are already available or coming out in the next few years. Gates’s annual speech can be useful for partners to help them determine which technologies are particularly important to Microsoft.

The two-day CEO Summit includes speeches, panel discussions, and social events and gives Microsoft an opportunity to pitch products to its largest customers and establish or reinforce partnerships away from press scrutiny. About 100 CEOs participated in this year’s event, including Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com), Barry Diller (USA Networks), Carly Fiorina (Hewlett-Packard), Michael Marks (Flextronics, the manufacturer of Microsoft’s Xbox console), and Paul Vivek (Wipro, which specializes in IT outsourcing).

Gates’s keynote speech, the only part of the summit available to the public, was organized around four areas in which Microsoft hopes to drive major changes by 2010: