Challenges & Opportunities

Earlier in 2008 at the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates introduced his idea for creative capitalism—an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities.

By matching business and technology experts with experts on the needs in the developing world, together we can find markets that are already there but are untapped. The power of the marketplace can help the poor.

Microsoft is committed to enabling social and economic opportunity for the next five billion people. We cannot do this alone. To deliver on this promise, we rely on public-private partnerships, including partnerships with other private-sector technology companies.

There lies a tremendous opportunity to do well by doing good. Consider the following industry trends:

• Technology progress has helped reduce the share of people living in absolute poverty in developing countries from 29 percent in 1990 to 18 percent in 2004.¹
• For low-income countries, the number of Internet users per 1,000 people rose by 172 percent between 1999 and 2005, the number of secure Internet servers per 1 million people increased by almost 30 percent a year between 2004 to 2006, and the number of mobile phone subscribers per 1,000 people rose by 92 percent between 1995 and 2005.²
• More than 6 million ultralow-cost mobile PCs for education segment will be shipped by year-end 2012. Such volume of ultralow-cost PC devices could provide a 40% uplift for education PC shipments in emerging markets.³

These trends represent opportunities for our partners to penetrate new markets, reach new customers, deliver new services, and grow revenues.

Learn more about Microsoft's technology partners for international development.

¹ Watsa, Kavita; Burns, Andrew, "Technology & Development: Findings from a World Bank Report Global Economic Prospects 2008: Technology Diffusion in the Developing World," World Bank, page 4.

² Burns, Andrew, Global Economic Prospects 2008: Technology Diffusion in the Developing World 2008," World Bank, page 91.

³ Kitagawa, Mikako; Jump, Annette; Shiffler III, George; Chakraborti, Diptarup; Hardcastle, Jonathon; "Predicts 2008: The Client Computing Market Will Undergo Fundamental Structural Changes," Gartner, 21 December 2007, page 6-7.