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Wipro-Microsoft combine can take on IBM: Bill Gates

BS Bureau in Bangalore

Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect, Microsoft said on Wednesday that Microsoft along with Wipro can take on its biggest competitor in the world, IBM.

Addressing developers at Wipro's campus, during his maiden visit to Bangalore, Gates said IBM was Microsoft's biggest competitor in the world.

"One thing I understand is that Microsoft's largest competitor, thus far the most important competitor, is IBM. And IBM, unlike Microsoft, has chosen to be in service business itself. IBM Global Services is the largest IT services company in the world," Gates said.

"What we are doing is to go to customers and say that Microsoft by being focused on Windows.net platform is able to do a better job at that and Wipro by being focused on the services aspect and with all its expertise that you have developed makes it a good combination and that is a very powerful combination as compared to the single company approach IBM has," Gates added.

He said Indian software companies are doing projects not only in a very cost effective manner, but also in a timely manner and with high quality.

"In two or three years from now it will be a common sense for anybody who wants a complex IT services project, to ask himself, Have we talked to Wipro whether they can help us to get this done?

"India is a software superpower and they (software companies in India) deliver work on time and of high quality," Gates said.

Praising Wipro for its high level of services, Gates said Microsoft was investing in furthering its relationship with Wipro.

"We are a very large and satisfied customer of Wipro," Gates said.

Earlier Gates in his address to the developers at Infosys' campus, said during the last couple of years, Indian companies such as Infosys Technologies Ltd had built a worldwide reputation and earned a name for delivering quality work on schedule.

In the next few years, he said, firms in the US and Europe would insist that Indian companies be considered for doing all mission critical work.

He urged the industry to collaborate for trustworthy computing. "Trustworthy computing is our biggest challenge for our $5 billion R&D work," Gates said adding "I think we will really surprise the world with our work."

Gates said the .net platform is not just about PC but about anytime, anywhere computing.

He said he was impressed with the work done by Indian software companies on the work they were doing on .net. Gates said Indian engineers should use more of Windows while dismissing threat from rival Linux.

"New applications on Microsoft platform makes no longer necessary to use very expensive machines from HP, Sun and other UNIX type systems. I may be biased, some of you may not agree but it happened on desktops and will happen on servers," Gates said.

Earlier, Gates told reporters that even though Linux was free, Windows was a richer platform.

"By being comprehensive, the software can save money because of the richness of the platform. You can save money in terms of cost of developing and cheaper hardware," Gates said.

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