WSJ.com - Bill Gates, Entertainer

WSJ.com - Bill Gates, Entertainer
WSJ: What makes this the right time for Microsoft and other big companies to put more emphasis on digital entertainment?
Mr. Gates: We came out with Media Center initially a few years ago. We had modest expectations and those expectations were met. As the hardware has gotten better, the software has gotten better ... we raised our expectations. We have raised them pretty dramatically for what's going to happen next year. It will be way more than all the previous years put together.
The video will probably surprise people the most -- where you can get in and get news stories and just pick the kind of news stories that you are interested in. Or you can get videos that would never come out through a broadcast infrastructure. That stuff is coming out on the Internet.
...
WSJ: Apple has attracted a lot of attention with its digital-music efforts. Is that frustrating?
Mr. Gates: No. It's great. The fact that the music scenario is maturing, it's more and more digital.
It's great for Apple to get attention. I was there when the Macintosh was launched in 1984 creating the template for graphical user interface. We believe in the PC. We actually agree with Apple that the PC in its general-purpose richness will play a strong role in the home vision. Now we're doing more with that than they are, but that's actually a common view. The more attention that's paid to this digital-media space, the better it is."