It what has to be a moment as awkward as when he rushed off The Daily Show’s stage the other day, Bill Gates was in Romania holding a joint press conference with that country’s President when said President made the following statement:
“Piracy helped the young generation discover computers. It set off the development of the IT industry in Romania,” Basescu said during a joint news conference with Gates.
“It helped Romanians improve their creative capacity in the IT industry, which has become famous around the world ... Ten years ago, it was an investment in Romania’s friendship with Microsoft and with Bill Gates.”
Gates made no comment.
There was a time when Bill Gates would admit that pirated copies of Microsoft products helped it to become dominate in the industry, but those days of candid admissions are long past and these days the official Microsoft line is that all piracy is harmful. Well at least the Romanian President was being honest. What more could you ask of a politician?
Market saturation does that to you.