For two decades, Bill Gates has used his Comdex keynote speech to mark out his vision for technologies from the Internet to XML. This year he used the bully pulpit to make it clear that the industry is at one of its perennial crossroads.
Once considered simple nuisances attending the digital lifestyle, cyberattacks and spam have morphed into disruptions costing millions of dollars in downtime and wasted manpower. Against a backdrop of mounting customer frustration with insecure digital infrastructures, Gates laid out his vision for a new era of technology that removes much of the hassle of being a computer user.
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