Microsoft Visits China
Bill Gates pushes for cheaper and more accessible software subsidies in order to spike a technology revolution across the globe. His goal with such a bold offer is to ease the economic inequalities between nations.
Gates visits China and urges tech investment
BEIJING (AP) — Greater investment in technology to improve health care and education would help ease global economic inequality, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Thursday, adding he saw no limits to the technological revolution.
“Health care … is right up there with education as a top area, a growing area, where we have to think about how the rich world is going to change what it’s doing and how we bring more equity and capability into the developing countries,” the world’s richest man said.
Gates on Thursday unveiled his company’s latest effort to bridge the digital divide worldwide, announcing several new ventures, including $3 software packages for government-subsidized student computers.
The software maker said it will sell a Student Innovation Suite, which includes Windows XP Starter Edition and Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, for $3 each to governments that subsidize a certain percentage of the cost of PCs for primary and secondary students for use at home and at school, starting in the second half of the year.
Gates said more opportunities would be created as technology becomes easier and cheaper to use as it advances.
