Gates says Microsoft geared for post-PC chaos

"The more the better. That’s why the investments we make to make it easier to do those things (applications) are ever more important," he said.

Gates, chased by photographers, arrived to a tumultuous welcome three years after his last visit to the nation, which is banking on a software boom to power economic growth.

"Gates logs on to India again," the Times of India said in its front-page headline. It carried a computer-engineered picture of Gates shaking hands with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who is currently visiting the United States.

For the Seattle-based tycoon, the richest man in the world with an estimated wealth of $50 billion, India is a crucial hunting ground for skills, ideas and a growing market.

In the Internet age, industry experts expect software to be rented over networks and paid for by usage, and also see an explosion in applications built on standards that no one owns.

Investments in start-ups and developers: Microsoft has for two decades ruled over a PC empire centred on its proprietary operating systems software, DOS and Windows.

The company became the world’s largest in its industry by wooing developers, with which it shared technology hooks to make end-user software but not the source code of its platform. "You know that the vision always was that there would be more and more applications," Gates said. "Now we are moving into a pace at which it can explode."

Over the next three years, Microsoft plans to invest $ 2.0 billion to enable industry partners, independent developers and corporate users to build .Net services.

Gates was scheduled to address Indian technology leaders and developers later on Thursday. Microsoft has hundreds of Indian software engineers on its rolls in Seattle, and a development centre in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.

He was also due to address a dozen state-level leaders in an expected pleading for "E-governance". Gates made way for Steve Ballmer to be the company’s chief executive officer so he could stay focused as the chief software architect for .Net, which analysts say is critical for the company to reinvent itself.

Increasingly, markets are conscious Microsoft cannot rely on owning key brands and technologies to drive growth. Microsoft now hopes to make and sell a suite of components, technologies and services as a means to make end-use applications which in large measures would be made by independent developers and run on a variety of digital devices.

Asked how important independent developers and start-ups, especially in India, were to Microsoft, Gates said they were critical to the company’s partnerships for success.

"They are totally critical to our strategy from our beginning. And… it’s the same that it always was (and) one of the things that Microsoft is the best at," Gates said.

Microsoft was scheduled to announce an alliance with Indian software services leader Infosys Technologies Ltd later on Thursday. Gates said he would elaborate on the project at his news conference.