Right Again Bill

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates last week mocked a $100 laptop computer for underdeveloping countries being developed with the backing of rival Google at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The $100 laptop project seeks to provide inexpensive computers to people in developing countries. The computers lack many features, we will not itemize those at the moment.

"The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk...and with a tiny little screen," Gates said at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in suburban Washington, D.C. "Hardware is a small part of the cost" of providing computing capabilities, he said, adding that the big costs come from network connectivity, applications and support (so much per kilo byte).

At the same time and before his critique, Gates showed off a new "ultramobile computer" which runs Microsoft Windows on a seven-inch touch screen and could sell for between $599 and $999.

"If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while youre trying to type," Gates said.

Our View Point:

Got to agree with Bill on this one. I just got back from a fishing trip to Texas. I used my palm serveral times and about half of my page request were the wrong requested page which is somewhat of my own fault considering my age and ability to point the stylus (of course Cingular billing will love all the page downloads). Then again my 650 treo would not be anything like a well developed Google Massachusetts Institute of Technology Tiny Little Screen Less A Hard Drive Software Optional 100. I suppose the memory cache would make up all the difference considering how underdeveloped the user may be anyway. At least Bill Gates knows theres more to half a cow than the head and tail.