When Bill Gates starts talking about blogs, you know it's time to take the technology seriously as a business tool, an analyst said Friday.
On Thursday, Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, touted blogs in a talk before a number of top business leaders at the Redmond, Wash.-based developer's annual CEO Summit.
"What blogging and these notifications are about is that you make it very easy to write something that you can think of, like an e-mail, but it goes up onto a Web site," said Gates. "[Blogging is about] getting away from the drawbacks of e-mail, that it's too imposing, and the drawbacks of a Web site, that you don't know if there's something new and interesting there."
Gate's emphasis on blogs and notifications via RSS (Real Simple Syndication) are the most extensive and official yet by Microsoft, an indication that the company is evaluating the technology, said Joe Wilcox, an analyst with Jupiter Research.
"We're talking about Mr. Microsoft here," he said. "If Gates starts talking, it's time to take it seriously, and if I'm inside Microsoft and have a visionary chairman like Gates, I'd better take this very seriously."