Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Thursday the software company plans to boost its research budget, a move expected to result in up to 5,000 new employees.
At a meeting with financial analysts here, Gates said the company plans to boost research spending by more than 8 percent in its new fiscal year, to $6.8 billion. "We believe we are just at the beginning of what we can do with software," he said. The company said in a press release that the increase will result in up to 5,000 jobs being added in the current fiscal year, which began this month, including 3,000 to 3,500 in the United States.
At the same time, Gates said the technology industry is faced with slower growth combined with a host of problems created by the Internet boom, including security risks and unsolicited e-mail. "I get a lot of spam," Gates said, "probably as much as anyone in the world."
The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft said he normally uses rules to filter his in-box, but in a lighthearted moment he showed several pieces of spam that slipped through. Some were on target, he joked, pointing to one that promised to help him get his college diploma. Others, such as an offer to get out of debt, seemed misplaced. One that was particularly intriguing, he quipped, was an offer to solve his legal problems for just pennies a day.