Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, spoke during a lecture at Stanford Business School about the potential of the software considering the continuous expansion of the computing processes in other domains besides the classic ones.

If so far, the number of world wide active computing systems has exceeded the 1 billion threshold, by 2008, their number will exceed 2 billion and according to the same "clairvoyant", this new generation of systems will be totally different from the one we have been accustomed to.

In the first place, it is outlined the need to develop much more efficient tools to search information to accompany the increase of devices used by the user to save information. Considering the universal trend of migration to the digital information, its organizing in a structure which is easy to consult and to administer becomes a priority for software producers.

According to this concept developed by Ballmer, the online search engines represent the key points of the future technology, and the leader in this domain, none other than Google, is destined to perish in less than five years. These predictions belong exclusively to Microsoft's CEO who sounds a little like Bill Gates announcing iPod's death.

It looks like Gates and Ballmer have already discovered the universal truth regarding technology and afford to make predictions that have so little to do with current market conditions.

Ballmer continued to praise the performances obtained by the new MSN Search regarding online searches, but also the features that will be included into Longhorn, which will allow the user to organize its information more intuitively.