Gates: Company's primary interest
lies in delivering content with software
Microsoft Corporation
SEATTLE (Reuter) -- Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill
Gates insists
the software giant is not becoming a media company,
despite
high-profile ventures such as its MSNBC news
operation, which
he described as "an anomaly."
"There's no way you could have more than 25
percent of our
revenue even in a five-year time frame coming from
these
interactive ventures," he said in response to a
question at the
company's annual financial analysts meeting. "We
are not
becoming a media company in some broad sense."
He said of the company's many new media ventures
MSNBC,
a partnership with General Electric Co.'s NBC
television network,
was unique because it included a traditional cable
channel.
But he insisted that Microsoft's interests lay
more in its ability
to deliver content via software.
For example he said the company's Internet
Explorer 4.0,
slated for release in the first quarter of next
year, would open up
new opportunities for delivering news and
information to the
desktop.
"Certainly some of the content we're doing will
be in a premier
position to take advantage of that," he said.
Gates also said Microsoft will re-launch its
11-month-old
Microsoft Network online service in the fall as an
Internet-based
service, focusing on seven countries, which he did
not specify.
He said the service has 1.5 million subscribers
although it has
little marketing, especially compared with the
campaign that will
accompany the re-launch.
Gates declined to comment on potential revenue
or earnings
from the content operations, saying only: "In the
near term, it's a
large negative number, that is for sure."
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