newsmaker Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer got Microsoft its first billion customers. It's Will Poole's job to get the next billion.
Poole, who co-leads Microsoft's emerging-markets push, is chartered with enabling the company's goal of allowing 1 billion more people to access computing technology by 2015.
The company has a number of efforts under way in the area, from the Starter Editions of Windows XP and Vista, to shared computers for classrooms, to research into turning a cell phone into a low-cost computer by connecting it with a large display. Poole said the last effort, which has garnered a fair bit of interest, is moving from the drawing board to reality.
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