Bill Gates on the Future of Web Apps

A small group of bloggers met Bill Gates to discuss the upcoming Microsoft's Mix 07 conference. Each participant got to ask Gates one question. Steve Rubel writes down a nice summary of Gates Q&A. Mike Arrington for example asked Gates about Digital Rights Management (DRM). Liz Gannes asked which applications he forecast to live within the browser and which outside of it. Liz summarizes his answer as follows:

"He replied that the distinction would come to be silly from a technical standpoint, but that the necessary movement toward web APIs does present challenges on the business side. “One of the things that’s actually held the industry back on this is, if you have an advertising business model, then you don’t want to expose your capabilities as a web service, because somebody would use that web service without plastering your ad up next to the thing.”

His solution wasn’t very specific: “It’s ideal if you get business models that don’t force someone to say ‘no, we won’t give you that service unless you display something right there on that home page.”

Then for the tease: “And, you know, [inside the browser and outside the browser are] moving towards each other, but there’s still a bit of a barrier there, and new technology, things we’re working on, really will change that.”"