By Michael Thurston
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 31 (AFP) - Internet industry leaders trumpeted Monday the wonders of mega-mergers like the recent AOL-Time Warner deal, but admitted that the world's poor will not benefit if they do not even have a telephone.
America Online (AOL) chief Steve Case and Microsoft boss Bill Gates agreed that the Internet revolution has only just begun, but said coming years will determine if the "digital divide" between rich and poor will narrow or widen. "We recognize that there are many countries where the kind of discussions we're having are almost not relevant, because they have much more basic needs, and in many cases there's so few telephones," Case told a press conference.
Gates also admitted that, while in the wealthy West, cable companies are frantically digging up roads to provide high-speed Internet access that is just a dream in poorer continents. "If you're going to reach out to Africa, you can't dig ditches," he said on a panel discussion on "Winning strategies for the Internet race."
The Internet and its role in shaping the developing global economy was a central theme of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
The merged AOL-Time Warner giant, bringing together the world's largest online service and a huge media content producer, is set to become the world's dominant media group once the deal is finalized later this year, Case said. However, it's potential for growth was also inextricably linked to the development of other technologies, including television and mobile telephony, which could help poor countries leapfrog into the wired world.
"It's not only your PC that will be revolutionized; your TV will be revolutionized; your phones will be revolutionized," said Gates, who recently gave up the Microsoft helm to return to his software developing roots.
Case warned that such development needed positive decisions by both business and government, if the gap between rich and poor was not going to widen as the U.S. and Western nations pulled far ahead. "If people don't proactively address this, there is a risk that the digital divide will grow," he said. "I think there's an opportunity for it to shrink, but that's going to require a concerted effort, not just from companies but also from countries and more of a spirit of public-private partnership," he added.
The risk of the Internet widening the gap between rich and poor was underlined in a survey of corporate bosses' views unveiled at the Davos meeting, which gathers more than 1,500 business and political leaders. The survey by consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers indicated that 50 percent of business bosses say the Internet risks widening the gap, while only 38 percent see it narrowing the divide.
Case stressed that the next decade is going to be the defining decade for the Internet. "The next 10 years are going to be the interesting ones, when it goes from being a curiosity to being an everyday part of the lives of ... soon down the road, hundreds of millions of people," he said.
Meanwhile, Gates reaffirmed that he is looking forward to getting down to work as Microsoft's chief software architect after handing over to Microsoft President Steve Ballmer. "All that technology gook, we love it. We're gonna keep doing it," he said.
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