ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, Chairman and Chief Software Architect from the Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates.

BILL GATES: Thank you! Well, good morning! Thanks for coming.

Today, we’re going to talk about Digital Entertainment Anywhere. What’s the vision for Digital Entertainment Anywhere? Well, it’s that you should be able to have your music, your photos, your video wherever you go. And that means a lot of different places. It means having those media experiences on the phone in your pocket, having a portable device that kids can watch movies in the back of the car, being able to have these things anywhere in the home, whether it's a bedroom with a TV screen, a room that you’ve just got your great speakers in and you like to listen to music. And the experience should be unified. If you set up a playlist, it should be available everywhere. If you subscribe to music, all the devices should be able to play that music.

This is a very challenging vision to achieve because it’s not something that one company alone can do. We need great advances in the PC, PCs that are quiet, PCs that fit into the living room in the right way. We need all the media companies to provide not only the media they have already, but the new media they’re developing, things that take advantage of the rich new platforms, the higher-quality video, the interactivity capability that’s there. We need something that works in the living room, where you can stand 10 feet away and use a single remote control that lets you understand exactly what you’re navigating.

In the world of analog media, we don’t have that. We have many different remote controls. We don’t have a simple user interface that guides you through what you’re trying to do for setting up, say, trying to record a show, or find a movie that you’re interested in, it’s far too difficult. We actually have to raise the level of richness, reduce the complexity, and unify things at the same time we’re offering more variety and more power. And why can we do this? Well, a part of it is the magic of software, and that’s where Microsoft comes in. What you’re going to see today is a number of devices running Microsoft software, software that delivers the media experience, software that is the platform for partners to build on. And by building on it, they take it in new directions, some directions that we wouldn't have even imagined.

Let’s talk about where the world is today in digital entertainment. Obviously the digital music scenario is exploding. People are either taking music off of the CD, ripping the CD, or doing some type of download so that they can have their music collection on different devices. That really is becoming the standard. It’s so much more convenient than working all the time with physical media. Digital photography, likewise, exploding, the devices are better, the resolution, the richness of the cameras, the fact that you can organize them, communicate them to other people clearly that is the mainstream of photography today. But we also talked about digital video, video is a little tougher, the infrastructure is just moving to digital. For example, TV broadcast is mostly still analog. The cable is a hybrid today where a lot of the popular channels are analog, but the new channels are moving to digital. Satellite was the first to move to digital. With digital we’re getting single purpose devices that are able to record programs and play them back whenever you want. And those devices are getting more intelligent and connecting up to more things.

We could say that video today is sort of where music was, or photography was about four years ago. With video about 13 percent of PCs have video files on them now. That was almost five years ago with music. We have 50 percent broadband penetration in the United States, and so that helps a lot. On broadband it takes about 14 minutes to download a compressed movie for a portable device, and that’s about the same as it would have taken over narrowband to download music.

So we’re clearly getting there, bringing this into the scenario, things that you just watch, and even things that you edit, and create yourself. So video we think will take its place alongside music and photos. You’ll be able to mix these together, put your music to your photos, and edit the transitions there. A lot of rich experiences that, when we thought about it in the analog world, simply wouldn’t have been possible.

Some people talk about a contrast between using consumer electronics devices that are single purpose, versus the idea of the unified experience, the multipurpose device. Clearly, we’re taking Windows and the PC and making them the best multipurpose device. But we know that we’ve got to make it easy, easy to set up, easy to navigate, and share the user experience. From the remote control experience to the portable device, from the music experience to the TV experience. And we feel that although these single-purpose devices will be there and will play a role, that it’s really the multipurpose device, the Windows PC that will be of the high-volume product, the richness it delivers and the flexibility, and openness.

We have a business model around the PC that’s designed to provide choice, a choice of hardware manufacturers, choice of software. We’re extending it now into this experience.

In fact, today you’ll hear about many great new things that our partners are doing. We have a business model here that’s very high volume, and it drives the cost of all the elements of it to be less and less. We believe in an ecosystem where even in the music store you get to pick exactly where you want to buy. And once you’ve picked your music stores that you like, that in no way should constrain what music device you work with.

We’re taking that philosophy and saying the same thing for video. We have many of these Portable Media Center – video-type devices, you’ll have a choice of exactly what you want there. And we’ll make it easy for you to know that all of these things work together.

Now, this year’s round of these products are a big milestone for us. This is where we see digital, digital entertainment anywhere moving into the mainstream. This year we’ll look back on as an inflection point for those media activities. Last month our announcements were about the music service, and the new music player, and the portable media device. That music player has gotten off to a very incredible start. It’s called the Windows Music Player version 10, and we put that out just a month ago, and we’ve had over 17 million downloads of that. That’s one every five seconds, and actually the rate of downloads is continuing to rise. So that’s an enabling factor. That’s the thing that exposes them all, and gets this all going. So you can see that when we talk about high volume we’re talking about over time, over the years ahead, the majority of household having rich, multipurpose media experiences.

So let me ask Sean Alexander, one of Microsoft’s group product managers, to come on out, because I think the best way to understand what we’re talking about here, and where we’re going is actually to see it in operation.

SEAN ALEXANDER: Hi, Bill.

BILL GATES: Hi, Sean.

SEAN ALEXANDER: Thanks. I’m excited to be here.

Today we’re making a major step forward, enabling digital entertainment anywhere, starting with the music experience of Windows Media Player 10, as you just pointed out. So, Bill, why don't we take a step over to the den and take a look at how that comes together.

So here I have a CD that I went ahead and ripped with Windows Media Player 10. I went out to a retail store, bought it, the new Joss Stone album, and playing back that CD on my PC is as simple as going ahead and double clicking the song and here we see the experience.

Now the first thing that you’ll notice is that we cleaned up the look of the Media Player. We have new visualizations, very easy, very convenient for you to use. We know the consumer is going to spend a lot of time in their media player enjoying their digital entertainment, so we wanted to make it a very comfortable experience.

Second, we added the ability to go ahead and choose which format you want to rip your music into. You can choose Windows Media audio, or you can choose MP3, right from within the Media Player, all you have to do is download it.

The third area, which is in the most important area, Bill, is that we added features in terms of Media Player, is that you don’t have just a single music service to choose from, you have a wide choice to music services through the world’s first digital Media Mall. That’s actually right here inside of Windows Media Player 10.

(Excerpted from the remarks by Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corporation at the Digital Entertainment Anywhere Event in Los Angeles on October 12, 2004, as transcribed)

参考译文：

主持人：女士们、先生们，让我们欢迎微软公司主席、首席软件设计师比尔·盖茨先生。

比尔盖茨：谢谢。大家早上好。谢谢各位的光临。

今天，我们要探讨的主题是随时随地数字娱乐。随时随地数字娱乐的目标是什么呢？就是，无论你走到哪里，都能拥有自己的音乐、照片和视频。这代表着许多不同的地方，如通过手机来获取媒体体验，让孩子们在汽车后座通过便携装置看电影，在家中的任何地方都能够获取媒体体验——不论是在有电视机的卧室还是用来欣赏音乐的视听室。这种媒体体验应该是统一的。如果你建立了播放菜单，那这个菜单应该在任何地方都能够使用。如果你订制了音乐，那所有的设备都应该能播放。

要实现这个目标非常具有挑战性，因为这不是哪一家公司仅凭一己之力能够完成的事情。我们需要个人电脑方面巨大的突破，需要安静的、能够以正确方式融入房间的个人电脑。我们需要所有的媒体公司来提供他们已有的媒体以及他们正在研发的新的媒体，如运用新平台的产品、高品质的影视文件以及已有的互动能力。我们需要能在起居室里工作的设备，这样你站在10尺以外，用遥控器就能够自如操作。

在模拟媒体的世界里，我们是无法享受到这些的。我们有很多个遥控器。我们没有一个简单的用户界面来引导我们完成一些设置的工作，比如我要录一场综艺节目或找部自己感兴趣的影片，这些任务对模拟媒体而言都太复杂了。其实我们已经增加了丰富性，降低了复杂性，并且在提供更多种类和更强大能源的时候也使其更具统一性。为什么我们能这样做呢？其中一部分是软件的魔力，微软在这方面就有着很大的优势。各位今天将要看到的就是使用微软产品的设备，微软的产品能提供媒体体验，能为伙伴提供一个平台。微软的伙伴通过这个平台能够以全新的、我们可能从未想象到的方向来运用微软的软件。

我们来谈一谈今天数字娱乐世界的状况吧。很明显，数字音乐正经历爆炸式的发展。人们把音乐从CD中拷贝出来、把音乐刻到CD上、从网上下载音乐以建立自己的音乐集合并在不同的设备上播放。这些正在成为某种标准。与使用传统媒体相比，这样的做法方便太多了。同样，数码摄影也经历着极迅速的发展，摄影器材十分先进，相机的分辨率和丰富度越来越高，使用者能方便的组织照片并将照片发送给他人。这显然已经成为数码摄影的主流了。现在人们也谈论数字视频，视频方面的进展可能没那么快，因为视频制作的设备刚刚进入数字化阶段。大多数的电视转播还是以模拟为主。有线电视则是模拟和数字的混合体，许多受大众欢迎的频道还是模拟的，但是一些新的频道则转向数字化。首先迈向数字化的是卫星，通过数字化手段我们能获取单一目的设施来录制节目并随意播放。这些设备变得越来越智能化，并能连接到更多的对象。

可以说今天视频的发展状况就是大概4年前音乐或摄影的发展状况。现在大约13%的个人电脑内存有视频文件。这个水平是5年前音乐的发展状况。在美国我们的宽带普及率是50%，给我们提供了很大的帮助。通过宽带下载一部压缩电影到便携设备上观看大约需要14分钟，与通过窄带下载音乐所需的时间相同。

我们现在正接近这个目标，使大家能够编辑甚至创建自己观看的文件。我们认为视频将与音乐和摄影共同发展。大家将有可能将三者融合在一起，把音乐加入到照片中，并编辑音乐中的变调部分。在模拟世界里，这样丰富的体验是不可能实现的。

有的人将使用单一用途消费电器与使用具有统一体验的多用途电器设施进行过对比。很明显，我们的目的是将运用视窗软件的个人电脑打造成最佳的多用途设施。我们知道，我们必须使它们便于安装、操作以及分享用户经验。从使用遥控器到使用便携设施，从音乐体验到电视体验。我们认为，虽然单一用途设施仍将存在并继续发挥其作用，但只有运用视窗软件的个人电脑才能为大众提供高产出、高丰富度、灵活性和开放性。

围绕个人电脑我们有一个商业模型，其目的在于提供选择，对硬件制造商以及软件的选择。我们正将此延伸到这个体验中来。

今天各位将会了解我们的合伙人生产出的伟大的新产品。我们现在有一个商业模型，产量很高，并能不断降低生产要素成本。我们信赖的是这样一种生态系统：你能准确找到购买中意产品的CD店。一旦你选定了喜欢的CD店，你可以选用任何音乐设备。

对视频文件我们也采取了同样的原则和态度。你将从各种便携媒体中心——视频类型的设施中找到自己需要的那一种。我们也会为你提供方便，使你了解所有类型的设施如何共同工作。

这些产品对我们而言具有里程碑般重要的意义。就是从这些产品中，我们看到随时随地数字娱乐正朝着主流的方向发展。今年将成为我们发展这些媒体活动的转折点。上个月，我们发布了关于音乐服务、新的音乐播放器以及便携媒体中心的消息。音乐播放器的发展有一个很好的开端。它的名称叫做窗口传媒播放装置10，一个月以前刚刚问世，到现在下载量已经超过1700万了，相当于每5秒钟就有一秒种在下载这个软件。现在它的下载率还在不断上升。高下载量是一个极大的促进因素，能准确的反映情况，使一切顺利发展。大家可以看到，我们谈论大的量时，我们说的是经过一段时间使大部分家庭拥有丰富的多用途的媒体体验。

我现在想请出微软的一位产品经理西恩亚历山大，因为我想了解我们今天话题以及发展方向的最佳方式就是了解它的运作过程。

西恩：你好，比尔。

比尔·盖茨：你好，西恩。

西恩：谢谢你。能来到这里我很高兴。

今天我们正向前迈进了一大步，我们以窗口传媒播放装置10带给我们的音乐体验为起点启动了“随时随地数字娱乐”活动，这一点你刚才已经提到过了。比尔，我想我们可以走近一点看个究竟。

我这里有一张CD，是我自己用窗口传媒播放装置10转换的。我在一家零售店买了一张Joss Stone的CD，用我自己的电脑播放。这一切都很简单，我们一起来看一看这个体验的过程吧。

大家首先注意到的是我们使媒体播放装置的外观更加简洁了。播放器有了新的外观，操作简单方便。我们知道消费者会用大量的时间通过媒体播放装置来享受数字娱乐生活，因此我们希望为他们提供非常舒适的体验。

第二，我们在窗口传媒播放装置10中增加了新的功能，使用户可以选择音乐保存的类型，如WM音频文件格式和MP3格式。这些格式选项在窗口传媒播放装置10中都有，你要做的就是从网上下载一份。

第三，也是最重要的一点，就是我们给我们的媒体播放器增加了一些新的特征，使我们的顾客不再只能选择单一的音乐服务，而是可以链接到世界一流的数字媒体商城去挑选产品。这一切尽在窗口传媒播放装置10。

（2004年10月12日，微软公司总裁盖茨在洛杉矶“随时随的数字娱乐”宣传活动上的演讲，节选，根据录音材料整理）