Arise, Sir Software

Bosom buddies Bill Gates and Gordon Brown are keen to point out that business innovation and IT are becoming synonymous

It was perhaps no surprise that as Chancellor Gordon Brown was giving a speech at a pow-wow between the Treasury and business leaders in London last week, his latest recommendation for an honorary knighthood, Bill Gates, was also present.

As well as speaking at Gordon's gig, Gates was scheduled to give a presentation to the Microsoft faithful at the Developing Software for the Future Microsoft Platform conference, hosted by Microsoft, in the same building on the same day. Coincidence?

While Brown's boss was drowning in top-up fees and the Hutton enquiry last week, the chancellor was telling business gurus and European leaders at the Advancing Enterprise conference that, in the new global economy, speed of innovation is the key.

And in the presence of the Thane of Seattle, whom the chancellor put forward for his honour because of his "services to global enterprise", Brown was keen to point out that today business innovation and IT are becoming synonymous.

In what may have been a verbal salute to the world's richest man, who has made his millions through creating and selling business software, Brown reinforced his point by illustrating that the adoption of technology platforms is increasing at a frightening rate.

He cited figures showing that the internet has grown to 50 million users in the past five years. In comparison, it took 16 years to get 50 million PC users.

Brown also pointed out that as manufacturing industry increasingly shifts to the more cost-effective developing world, New Labour has recognised that the continuing challenge for the UK is to find and exploit "high valued-added, high-tech, high-skilled, science-driven products and services".

This, said Brown, will be the key to wealth creation in the future.

This speech was perhaps good news for the IT industry, because a government thumbs up for technology adoption will give confidence to end-users to defrost frozen IT budgets.

But it's perhaps old news for resellers that have used the recipe of high-tech and value-add with an increasing pinch of services for some time now.