The dot-com boom wasn't a total bust, according to Bill Gates. The Microsoft chairman said Monday that most of the advances promised during the Internet boom will eventually come true. "Virtually everything that was discussed, even the most hyped thing" will happen, Gates told a crowd of researchers gathered at its headquarters here for the company's yearly Microsoft Research Faculty Summit. "It just takes more time."

Gates said only the most basic business processes are handled digitally today, so many of the real productivity gains still lie ahead. "Certainly less than 10 percent of that has actually been realized," he said. The speech echoed the upbeat presentations that Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivered to financial analysts last week. In another part of his speech, Gates said that Microsoft has made significant progress in getting its Windows CE operating system designed into new automobiles. He predicted that within two to three years "about 30 percent of cars" will have a display system using the scaled-down software for non-PC devices that use embedded processors.