Bill Gates predicts the future

Claiming that two-thirds of the predictions he made for 1997 have cometrue, Microsoft chairman and CEO Bill Gates has turned his attention to1998. Gates says that technologies such as Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)and Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) will be hot in the coming year.

"I have six predictions for 1998, or at least six that I'll share," Gates says. "Four are repeat predictions that didn't quite come true in 1997...there are two new predictions."

The two new predictions regard DSL and DVD. "Trials of DSL are under way inthe United States already, although it won't be until late 1998 that substantial numbers of consumers get the service," he says.

Gates' four predictions from 1997 that didn't come true include a focuson videoconferencing, mainstream 3D graphics, sharply falling total cost ofownership for PCs, and "that people will widely recognize that PC technology can take on any computing task.