The Marker - October 25,2005
Bill Gates in Israel - Visits Technology Innovators
Meets Face to Face with Six Companies
Seventeen years after Microsoft began operating in Israel, today its founder and chairman, Bill Gates, has come to visit for the first time.
Gates will not be leaving his hotel, The David Intercontinental in Tel Aviv, at all during the 24-hour lightning visit, with the exception of a short meeting with the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, elsewhere in Tel Aviv.
The headquarters in Seattle has been inundated with requests in respect to the trip.
In one respect, it is surprising that Gates never visited before. Israel is considered second only to the United States as a source of new technologies for software, communications, semiconductors and life sciences. The country may be small but it's become a huge target for multinationals. Steve Ballmer, second only to Gates at Redmond, did visit about a year ago.
The Microsoft development center in Haifa has about 20 employees working on software security, but the global company tends to downplay its contribution for fear of an Arab backlash.
Aside from his leading role at Microsoft, Gates and his wife Melinda have also become philanthropists. In 2000 they founded the biggest charity of its type in the world, which has so far discussed $27 billion. It is not known whether Gates has any particular philanthropy in mind regarding his visit here.
Why did Gates choose now of all times? It's anybody's guess but it could be part of the company's general restructuring. Just last week Ballmer took the business world by surprise, saying Microsoft would become nimbler and quicker, and shortens periods between software upgrades.
Microsoft explains only that the schedule suited Gates' itinerary: after Israel he will be visiting Jordan.
Open code aficionados vs. Microsoft
Open code aficionados, whose activities are by and large the biggest threat to Microsoft, claim his visit is designed to strengthen Microsoft's relations with the community of developers, hoping to persuade them and startup entrepreneurs as well to base their developments on Microsoft platforms, not rival products by Linux or Sun Microsystems.
The Israeli government had made a stab at adopting open code platforms and convincing consumers to use Open Office instead of paying Microsoft. It failed. But the Redmond giant took note.
A more competitive world
Be that as it may, Microsoft lives in a more competitive world and that may explain why Gates' first meeting after landing in Israel will be with the nation's hi-tech leaders, people whom Microsoft has tagged as being innovators, the people behind Check Point Software Technologies (NASDAQ:CHKP, Amdocs (NYSELDOX), Nice Systems (NASDAQ:NICE), Verint Systems (NASDAQ:VRNT) and the startups Olive Software, Actimize and others.
Later he will be meeting with Microsoft's business partners in Israel and business leaders such as Amikam Cohen of Partner Communications (LSE, TASE, NASDAQ:TPNE), Chemi Peres of Pitango, Yaron Zelekha, the accountant-general at the Finance Ministry, Izzy Borovich of EL AL (TASE: ELAL) and Granite Hacarmel, Zvi Ziv, the CEO of Bank Hapoalim (TASE:POLI) and Jacob Gelbard, the leader of PelePhone Communications and now of Bezeq (TASE:BZEQ) as well. At the end, Gates will meet with 400 Microsoft workers in Israel.
Tomorrow Gates will be lecturing before 2,000 business leaders on the new work space, and visions of future software for business applications. He will also be meeting with 40 outstanding high school students to discuss technological innovation. He will be leaving Israel at three this afternoon.