Microsoft focuses on improving IT literacy in Bangladesh

Saw Ken Wye, President, South-East Asia, Microsoft Asia Pacific, talks to StarTech during the interview

SH: Please tell us about the programmes you have projected for Bangladesh?

SKW: We have come here to make sure we support our customers better. One of the key objectives in our projects is to provide education among the young. Bringing technology and improving IT literacy are what we consider as our personal social responsibility. Positioning ourselves as a partner to the government is also what we consider among our programmes. This time with the education ministry we have had talks on methodologies of increasing IT literacy.

SH: Now that you have located your office here, do you consider our local expertise for your global products?

SKW: We have people from Bangladesh working in Redmond building products for global consumption. We are always on the lookout for smart people to help with our product development strategy. I should point out that we found that the strategy of concentrating product development in Redmond pays the best dividend for us and it will be unlikely that we will be setting up a development facility in Bangladesh.

SH: You must be aware that Bangladesh is lacking in piracy prevention, can Microsoft help in anyway for this matter?

SKW: Surely, it starts with education. We are changing the value preposition for original software. The genuine Windows users are able to get more efficient output system. Besides consumers need to realise that our business is affected by their preferences towards pirated products which at a time may lose the market for these products that they are finding useful.

SH: Language may play a pivotal role for the operation of your systems locally and for that matter we know that Microsoft in India had already brought operations in their own language. How long might it be when we find your Windows in our native language?

SKW: We will do it but it's a matter of time. One of the challenges we had was the standard. The standard we look forward is Unicode and now finally we hear that Bangladesh Computer Council is applying for Unicode, which should not take more than twelve months to attain the standard layout of the keyboard.

SH: Would you please disclose how much you have invested in Bangladesh market? How would you rank this country in terms of your market among Southeast Asia?

SKW: It is easily over a million dollar investment so far. For now I rank it as one of the the fastest growing market.

SH: Could you please give us a detailed idea of the technology adopted in Longhorn and its features? Possibly it's being the latest in any operating system releases, so what might be the tasks running behind the screen?

SKW: You should see Longhorn as the next big exciting milestone for us in the Windows operating system space. Some of the fundamental changes are its security, deployment and manageability.

We also expect Longhorn to make data more accessible. Visually, the desktop, folders and icons now provide live snapshots of the documents to help users use and manage their software more intuitively. Documents can also now be organised based on metadata in terms of authors, subjects or keywords. In short, Longhorn is designed to be more connected than your telephone, more informative than your newspaper, and more entertaining than your television.

SH: 'The Finalizer' is what Microsoft had in surprise at their biggest annual technology education (Tech-Ed 2005) conference recently. It's a high-end, smart BattleBot built with Microsoft .NET technologies. We would like your words on .NET technology and how you have linked it with a device like BattleBot?

SKW: Microsoft defines .NET as a process that connects people, systems and services together. It is about providing and delivering an integrated platform to our customers at any time, any place and on any device.

What we have demonstrated at TechEd is really a showcase of how integrated technology can be. The Framework that we used is a key part of helping us to provide customers with greater experiences. The .NET Compact Framework's managed code and XML Web services enable the development of secure, downloadable applications on devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, and set-top boxes.

SH: Having your Windows available in mobile phones, how does it help in productivity in such a small screen?

SKW: We consider our move into the mobile market as part of an extension of the experience a customer is used to when using a computer. In a connected world, it is only natural to assume that customers will want the same experience they have on a desktop/laptop to be with them when they are on move. The best way to encapsulate this experience is to make the data flow seamlessly between different devices under usage scenarios.

So in my case, I have a windows mobile phone. My contact information, calendar, email and tasks are all synchronized with my Microsoft Exchange server. I do not keep any data in my SIM card and in the case when I lose my phone, all I have to do is get a new phone and then sync the information over the air through a GPRS connection. I am instantly 'productive' again.

SH: What would be the vision for Offices of next generation? Here we'd also prefer your words on XML format and its use with Office.

SKW: As our Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Bill Gates had mentioned at the CEO summit at Redmond, the new world of work is what we're living in today and will be adapting tomorrow, and it represents how the work place is changing overall. In view of that, we are focusing our efforts on developing new capabilities in our upcoming version of Offices. Better data visualisation and analysis tools will expose the trends, patterns and exceptions buried in mountains of data, so information workers can find what they need from across different repositories and intelligent searches.

XML enables companies to capture information in such a way that it can be repurposed and reused however and whenever the organiwsation needs to use it, regardless of platform. Building on the XML support in the Microsoft Office system, customers can improve data flow throughout organisations and build customized business process and productivity solutions that help information workers make a greater impact on their business. XML can unlock information currently stored in back-end or line-of-business systems, which can then be processed and re-purposed on the desktop in the Office applications with which people are already very familiar.