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November-december 2003 Microsoft
Corporation Microsoft's
Mundie Says World On Brink Of New Era In Computerization Craig
Mundie, Microsoft Corporation senior vice-president and chief
technology officer, opened the first session of the third day of
APEC CEO Summit 2003 on "the new frontiers of knowledge and
technology". Mr.
Mundie began his talk by saying this is a time offering great
challenges and opportunities while most of the world's
population do not yet fully understand how dependent we have
become on computerization and Information technology. He
used the analogy of the printing press and beginning of the
industrial revolution to show how at the time of its invention
no one could predict how it, the same as computers and IT, would
alter the world as we know it. It took as many as 300 years to
realize how dependant society had become on the technology. The
Microsoft CIO next turned his attention to the trustworthiness
of the cyber world, saying that this intangible world actually
mirrors our tangible one. "While the world worries about
WMD, or Weapons of Mass Destruction, we in IT call this Weapons
of Mass Disruption." The damage might not be physical, but
the large scale worms can be just as destructive.
For this reason, Mr. Mundie says security has become a
much greater concern and now the difficulty lies in balancing
security and privacy of users. The last two areas to ensure safe
access 6that he mentioned were reliability and business
integrity. Mr.
Mundie again used an analogy, comparing cyber protection and
public health. When people have caught illnesses, medicine and
antibiotics are developed to cure them. After this, vaccines are
invented. To protect the Internet from attacks, inoculations
must also be created. He went on to say that other deterrents
such as legislation and cyber police forces must be established
and enforcement be stringently imposed. Mr. Mundie then turned
his attention to the future. He said while many say that we have
come to the end of the IT era, he sees that we are just entering
a new era where all communication and IT tools are becoming
linked through a single gigantic platform, the Internet. Our
phones, computers, televisions and virtually all our wireless IT
devices are becoming interconnected. The
challenge then becomes for governments, businesses and people to
look for new opportunities and advantages offered by this
revolution. Mr.
Mundie advised that it is important to take a holistic approach
to this and that education is vital. He gave as an example the
United States where as much of today's workforce is under the
age of 25 and by 2020, this figure could rise to as high as 50%.
The job of governments now is to decide if they are ready to
join this new era now, which he says should last from 2004 to
2014, before another evolutionary step will take place. If
governments, especially those in emerging economies, focus on
the current conditions in the world of computers and IT, he
feels they will be left behind. By looking to the future, they
open themselves to enormous possibilities. He then listed three
areas that governments should concentrate in developing their
policies. First, Mr. Mundie said governments must support
developing their local software industry. With new advancements
in software and programming, he says development will have to
become much more localized and become based on not just language
but also national culture and customs. In the past, programs
were much simpler, but with the speed of advancement, expansion
and interconnection of platforms and open protocols, technology
will have to become even more precise and specialized. At the
same time, they must be very stringent in their protection of
Intellectual Property Rights if they do not want to see this
industry and related sectors collapse.
Second, Mr. Mundie said they must focus on setting clear
policy as far as proprietary and open source software and third
establish precise laws and legislation on privacy, security and,
just as important, spam as the latter can lead to a decline in
use, which can hamper the speed of further development.
Concluding his address, |
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