What does Bill Gates think about Wikis?

Ok. I want you to read the following quote and guess who made this remark:

You know, as I mentioned, the consumer Web is moving at a very rapid pace, and so wikis, the idea that in some cases you want everybody to be able to contribute and come in, offer up their ideas, if you can just get the basic site organization right, the kind of creativity and participation from an organization that you can see can be very, very strong and really encouraging people, not a formal process, the wiki lets that happen.

Was it maybe Ross Mayfield or Cindy Rockwell or Mike Cannon-Brookes?

Good guesses but no.

It was Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation at the SharePoint Conference in May of 2006

Ok, let’s try another quote:

What we need is the ability for an individual, very easily without contacting the IT department, to essentially create a Web site, and as they do that to decide, based on a set of templates, exactly what type of Web site it would be. You may have heard people talk about blogs and wikis as things that are flourishing on the Internet; those are ways that lots of people can contribute and comment on things, you can edit different things, see who is agreeing or disagreeing, and they're wonderful bottom's up tools.

Was it Ward Cunningham or Jimmy Wales? Nope.

It was Bill Gates at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum Europe in February of 2006.

Comments

[Doug Mitchell]

These comments bode well for Microsoft...except that Bill Gates "Doesn't work there anymore" and Sharepoint "Doesn't exactly do the things he mentioned without a fairly large investment in people, hardware, and software licensing." Microsoft is not dead by anymeans, but the world of Web 2.0 is penetrating the enterprise and finding its place. So how's the Vista release coming...?