Russia is a thorn in Microsoft's side

The number of computer users in the world will reach billion soon

Only thirty years have passed since the day, when the first personal computer appeared, although modern life seems to be impossible without it. Every tenth person living on planet Earth uses the artificial intelligence daily, and this is far from being a limit. According to experts' estimates, the number of computers in the world will increase considerably during the coming years. There are about 700 million computers in the world nowadays. The number is expected to grow up to a billion and more in six years.

There are more than enough opportunities for the development of computer technologies. However, there are different estimations as far as consequences of the computer boom are concerned. IDC agency reported the number of pc users would increase by 79 percent in the coming six years. By the end of 2009 there will be 1.2 billion users in the world. The computer market will grow by 152 million machines already this year.

Developing countries – China, Russia and India – will contribute most to the growth of the computer market. Considerable sales volumes, however, will be possible to achieve in the event companies manage to cope with problems, which traditionally occur in these states. Poverty, multilingual systems, inconvenient local laws and the low educational level will be major obstacles on the way of the computer development. Experts are certain, though, developing countries will not be able to solve such problems within six years.

The US Agency for International Development and the UN will also play an important role on problematic markets. Microsoft is already running a program of its own to simplify the development of such regional markets. The program stipulates special laws to protect the intellectual property and the development of high-tech industries in a country. “Many countries want to have good exports, although they do not understand the need of adequate internal resources for it,” Microsoft's Maggie Wilderotter said.

Specialists point out, however, one billion computers will not be hard to achieve, although two and three billions will be rather complicated.