A Four-Letter Word Called Hype

IT was just another sales trip. But sadly, our senior politicians and industrialists didn't seem to figure that out. The Prime Minister gave him breakfast. The Finance Minister appeared pleased that he liked Budget '97. The Andhra Pradesh chief minister wants to set up a university named after Gates. CEOs engaged in mini-WWF bouts with burly securitymen to get a looksee at the world's most famous businessman. This is how CII President Shekhar Dutta introduced Gates at the CII-organised gathering at Delhi: "This century has seen two Bills. The second in ranking heads the only superpower in the world today. The first is Mr Bill Gates." New heights of obsequiousness were soon scaled by NASSCOM Chief Dewang Mehta when he gushed: "In two days you (Gates) have done more for the Indian computer industry than we could achieve in 25 years." But he was overtaken within hours by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Executive Secretary and Director-General C. Subramaniam: "His visit today is a God-given opportunity." For who?

What Gates offered India was $1 million (Rs 3.5 crore), spread over a period of three years for three IITs and two IIMs. To put it in perspective, Gates' personal wealth from just Microsoft stocks rose by $30 million per day last year. To put it more in perspective, an IIT or an IIM can easily raise Rs 23.3 lakh (which is the amount each of the institutes has been blessed with every year in the Gates dispensation) extra by just hiking the rates companies pay to come and recruit their students. To put it even further in perspective, Rs 23.3 lakh will buy 25 multimedia PCs, or just 10 multimedia notebook computers. Hey, gee, thanks, Bill.

"Microsoft's commitment to India is in terms of developing a global talent pool, a national infrastructure for on-line education and to contribute to the community," said Gates. But his mouth appeared light years away from his money. No commitments on setting up software development facilities in India, nor on developing partnerships with Indian software firms, and no further light thrown on his prediction at Davos a couple of months ago that India had the potential to be "a software superpower", the prediction which immediately got him an invitation from Deve Gowda to visit India.

Now compare the reception Gates got to the way major foreign investors in India—be it in power or telecom or any other critical area—have been treated by the Government. How many of them, even after committing a billion dollars or more to India, have managed to get an appointment with a government secretary, let alone the Prime Minister, at will? Poor President Ramos of Philippines, who landed in Delhi while Gates was still around. As head of state of a country which could be economically very important for India, he must have felt rather bewildered at the complete lack of attention paid to him by the media.

So while Indian software engineers dreamed of being a Microserf, industrialists fantasised about some sort of tie-ups, saucer-eyed politicians expected big-time investments to flow into the country, preferably to their constituencies, and intellectuals expected stimulating speeches about the new digital world order, Gates rehashed his bestselling book The Road Ahead in speech after speech, about how PCs and the Internet were reshaping the world. Given the fact that Gates' claim to be an Internet visionary is dubious at best—the 1997 version of Microsoft Word is the first one to include the word "Internet" in its dictionary—there was little gained by anyone.

AFTER every speech, Gates answered questions from the floor. Most of these questions too were trite. Sample: "Sir, myself S.P. Kanwar (name changed); my problem, sir, is that all my software people disappear after three months. How do I solve this problem, sir?" Or "Mr Billgates, how does it feel to be a billionaire?" (Answer: "My wealth comes from my 25 per cent stake in Microsoft. It's a challenging job. It would be the same whether I was an employee or owner. The industry is very competitive. We have Most of these questions too were trite. Sample: "Sir, myself S.P. Kanwar (name changed); my problem, sir, is that all my software people disappear after three months. How do I solve this problem, sir?" Or "Mr Billgates, how does it feel to be a billionaire?" (Answer: "My wealth comes from my 25 per cent stake in Microsoft. It's a challenging job. It would be the same whether I was an employee or owner. The industry is very competitive. We have to keep improving our products so that customers find it easier, beautiful and cheaper to use. That's the challenge. And the fun!") Or "Bill, I'm a child but I have access to the Internet. How do I protect myself from the perversities that I have heard are floating around on the Internet?" Son, all you have to do is not to look for it on the Net. There's nothing out there on the Net unless you're looking for it.

When a lady in Delhi asked Gates whether it was true, as reported in Time, that he planned to give his wealth away after another 10 years or so, Indian businessmen revealed a lot about themselves when half of Delhi's senior industrialists thought that the question was too funny for words, and guffawed loudly. When Gates gave a perfectly valid answer to this perfectly valid question ("Yes, I will. I don't think leaving it for children is such a good idea. But I do have a bit of time to think about that."), the hall again echoed with hearty laughter, leaving Gates looking a mite perplexed.

So in a way, Indian industrialists and politicians got what they deserved. They mistook a highly successful businessman as a visionary messiah. They didn't even bother to figure out that Microsoft's fame comes from its power, not its size (around $10 billion), so its investments could hardly be very large. And they forgot to check whether Microsoft has ever set up a software development facility anywhere outside the US (it hasn't). And around a fortnight before Gates' plane touched down at Indira Gandhi International Airport, when it was clear to all from Microsoft pronouncements that Gates was coming to India to check out the market for his products, and little else, the nation's opinion leaders failed to reorient their thinking.

In the ultimate analysis, all the politicians, businessmen and whoever else managed to get a pass and claw past often-violent securitymen to see and hear Gates, simply wanted to ogle at the world's richest man. This is something Gates must be familiar with by now. Whether he is entirely comfortable with this, one will never really know. But it serves his purpose, which is to sell millions of software packages. China gave him a limousine cavalcade with motorcycle outriders a few years ago, when he landed at Beijing airport. India stopped short of that. Thank God.

Paradoxically, therefore, everyone concerned went home happy. The star-struck returned to their companies, constituencies and colleges, saying: yes, I was there; I saw the phenomenon. Reactions that Outlook got from Gates' audience: "He's a great dreamer. And his dreams come true. That's fascinating," said Meenakshi Nayar, vice-president, DCM. Said R.L. Koul, member, National Highway Authority of India: "At such a young age, this man has conquered the world. Everybody is looking for Windows and more Windows." And Dr Aditya of the National Informatics Centre: "He has done wonders to desk-top publications in terms of user-friendliness. I wonder what he's going to do on the Internet."

And what was the impression India gave Gates? That the country was a huge cluster of very warm and highly immature people. And possibly a great market. At the end of the day, Gates goes back carrying this message from India: "Glad to have you here, Bill. We'll be grateful if you would sell your products to us." Doesn't matter if, even as Gates was holding forth in Delhi on the Microsoft Internet Explorer, Paul Greene, a student at the Worcestor Polytechnic Institute in Massachussets was apprising Microsoft researchers about a serious security bug in the software.

Gates, definitely, is not at fault for whatever happened on his India visit. Indeed, for all his wealth, he was all humility. His hair remains dishevelled, and his suits still don't fit. And that's the bottomline. All Gates is doing is doing something he enjoys. If he makes billions in the bargain, so much the better. If he chooses not to put some of those billions in this country, it's his choice. And if you still slaveringly choose to grant him the demi-god status—that's your problem.

The Gates visit should have given a tip or two to other businessmen coming to India: well hyped is well done.