Microsoft chairman Bill Gates was optimistic on Monday that software and technology advances over the next decade will increase productivity in the same way as during the 1990s.
The blending of technologies such as "tablet" computers and wireless Internet software, with continuously improving hardware, will come together to serve computerized workforces and transform home entertainment, he told business executives in Madrid.
Gates last month showed prototypes of Microsoft"s Tablet PC, a notebook computer that lets users jot notes and diagrams as if on paper.
"In the next decade a lot more is going to happen. ... The only winner is the consumer," he said.
Gates said the U.S. software giant had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in, and staked its reputation on, software for tablet PCs, which he said made computing more intimate.