Microsoft: 'We're simple'

Speaking today at the Microsoft Developers Conference, the Redmond behemoth's head man revealed his dream for the future of software - keep it small and keep it simple.

Gates described software as the '"key frontier" left in tech and said that the software giant wants to make sure that any users would always be familiar with the interface in front of them. Gates said he wants it so users can "see the same concepts as you navigate different types of information" but admitted that the there is still a long way to go.

"The challenge of doing it right requires a lot of innovation," he said.

Keeping the little man happy is at the forefront of Gates' mind in more ways than one. With new CRM software launched today, aimed at SMEs as well as the big players, the newly 'knighted' Sir Bill underlined Microsoft's commitment to backing small business.

"Small business should be able to use [Microsoft software] as well as big business and overcome difficulties of scale," he said.

When questioned by a small businessman about the problem the deluge of spam and viruses posed to SMEs, Gates reiterated his ideas of stopping spam at source with "payment at risk" system and hopes to kill off the twin menaces in the coming years.

While some businesses may be suffering, Gates said he believed the Utopian vision of ecommerce is worth fighting for: "It's tough to achieve the dream of ecommerce but it is worth achieving - the productivity the world economy achieves is phenomenal." But he acknowledged killing off spam and malware comes first.

"There are big roadblocks [between business to business communication]... systems have to be incredibly trustworthy," he said. " It's an area of great concern for us - we want to make it so people with malicious intent can't cause outages - it's a top area we're spending on time on. You won't see it... you'll just say 'wow'" when the system works, he claimed.

When it comes to keeping systems secure, 'Sir' Bill said the software giant has two main messages - get a firewall and keep your software updated - but admitted it is up to Microsoft to play its part, adding that ensuring 90 per cent update compliance is on the agenda.

Nevertheless, even a computing legend like Bill Gates isn't immune from the odd spammer. Gates told conference how some of the junk that lands in his inbox offers to help him get out of debt and cover his legal costs for just a few cents a day. Those spammers don't know what they've promised.