Global Economy & Technology
The panel forum included Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, Niklas Zennstrom, CEO of Skype Technologies, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, Geoffrey Moore (TRG Advisors moderator).

There were many topics covered but one piqued my interest, Digital Rights Mgmt. It’s an important topic for anyone publishing content on the internet. And Bill Gates response was especially revealing in that he talked about ‘controlling when and how’ people share the content they’ve already purchased, and how they (MS) are teaching their customers about the rules/expectations regarding the content. One of the first things that comes to mind for me was why aren’t any successful Open Source companies represented on the panel. What about Creative Commons? I’ve seen Lawrence Lessig speak and am sure he would have been able to contribute new ideas/thoughts to this topical discussion.

Several other interesting points included Bill commenting about governments using their software to facilitate their productivity. But one thing to keep in mind is several governments around the world have mandates to move all their users to Open Source or GPL software including the operating systems (Windows OS alternative Linspire) and applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc OS alternative OpenOffice). And there are comparable solutions that compete with the professional/usability of those proprietary MicroSoft products.

I can’t go without saying I’m not impressed with many of the comments of the panel, they tended to spout out all manner of acronyms and plugging their own ‘wonderful’ products. Google had some interesting ideas and if I have to bet on success from these companies I would bet on Google because they seem to have their finger on the pulse of what is really going on with the web. I would say Bill is still stuck in his model of business since it is his bread and butter. And he has a stake in keeping the status quo — i.e., his business model.

Public Policy Issue for the Technology Sector
John Chambers believes the educational system in the US is broken — they hope technology can play a part in building a better system. He mentioned Cisco would help Mississippi rebuild their school system including curriculum and infrastructure.

Bill Gates, agrees with John that education is the number one public policy issue. He mentions free trade, H1Visas, and research.

Eric Schmidt responds, “Rights and responsibilities of people’s lives onlines”, i.e., privacy, identity theft, and “big brother”. I agree with him on these and these issues are not being addressed. The panel moderator asks how does the public policy and technology affect these points. Eric responds that it is both and laws are being passed to address this.

Technology idustry is affecting/crossing over to so many other industries. Regulations and laws that are outdated due to the how the technology has grown/expanded. The landscape is different but policy makers define specific policies for the new areas and address the global nature of the internet, so global policies are important. More and more hands off to facilitate growth.

Moderator summarizes, three vectors the moderator thinks we should be looking:

1. Digitization of everything — changing business models - so informatin becomes important.
2. Transaction to interaction — google search is transactin — interaction is ???
3. Things become free — and with scale 30.00 for four channel versus 30.00 a month for the world.

Open Audience Questions
It will be interesting to see if anyone is the audience raises the question of Open Source/GPL issues.

One professor from Brazil asks about the reality of the Internet, Bill responds in the beginning of the printed book, people had the same sorts of fears. And the internet enables the curiosity of students.

Someone asks about computer games and how will games be used in education.
50% of the panel plays games — John Chambers responds computer games can enhance students learning of math and science. Bill Gates, plugs the author’s book, Everything bad is good for you.

They ended the audience questions with someone asking Eric about their decision to go into China. He said the company has to follow local laws and if they want to offer their service to China then they will have to abide by these laws. He also mentioned something about their “evil scale” — but I’m not familiar with this. And then Bill mentions something about the ‘lesser of two evils’ the moderator chimed in agreeing with him. Then Eric says I won’t get into a discussing semantics — and Bill Clinton flashed in my mind :).

I was disappointed the progressive ideas of access to code and extending or expanding our ideas of copyright on the panel. (sigh)

I hope to find a transcript of this program somewhere but after a quick search, of course on Google I couldn’t find anything. The program was broadcast on CSPAN2 so I hope to be able to find something there and if anyone else has info about links etc let me know.