Bill Gates

The Road Ahead attempts to explain and predict the next major technological revolution, an interconnected, inexpensive global network referred to as the information highway, the precursor of that's the Internet. Gates argues, "The data highway is often a mass phenomenon, or it is nothing" (p. 256), a low-cost (but not free) means of sharing data in between the majority of persons on the world. Gates suggests that the term "highway" just isn't one of the most accurate word, as it indicates genuine movement, a sense of several folks following the exact same route, and government-sponsored construction, all inaccurate concepts. He acknowledges, however, that the term has already been extensively accepted; he suggests, "When you hear the phrase 'information highway,' instead of seeing a road, imagine a market or an exchange" (p. 6).

Gates spends a considerable part of his book theorizing about the types of uses to which this kind of a global marketplace would be put. Many of these uses sound as farfetched as did science fiction predictions of 30 or 50 years ago that suggested that late-twentieth-century technology would make flying cars and vacations on the moon part with the everyday fabric of life. Although some of his predicted applications are likely being commonplace inside relatively near future, they are blended indiscriminately with applications which appear to become impractical and unlikely.

Gates admits that many of his specific predictions may well soon seem being completely off-base. He is at his most effective after he is concentrating on the larger questions that the info explosion poses as well as the lessons that will be learned inside the past. He argues, "The relevant question is, 'What if communicating had been virtually free?'" (p. 18). Several of his predictions are attempts to answer this question in specific terms, when the much more valuable response would be to discuss how this sort of lowered costs could possibly be achieved, that the new technologies could be created even far more universally obtainable (especially to people in impoverished, remote, and technologically backward situations), and what forms of questions substantially higher access to nearly-free communications may well raise for companies and individuals.

tion on the modern trend toward telecommuting as being a a lot more efficient way of conducting individuals aspects of business which do not need an employee to work from a set location. He suggests how the facts highway will eventually permit shoppers to connect directly and right away of the particular person designated by a business as in a position to handle the customer's specific need or complaint. For instance, a company which manufactures and sells hiking equipment may perhaps have an expert on staff in the construction and use of ice axes. Modern telecommunications technology would allow a consumer to contact that expert directly and ask detailed questions within the appropriateness of a specific axe in climbing a particular mountain. However, Gates' suggestion that the two human beings involved in this conversation would eventually be able to interact in genuine time at any moment on the day convenient for the buyer doesn't consider international time differences and also the simple fact how the expert could be asleep or out climbing a mountain once the call was placed.

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