For the first time since March 1997, William H Gates III, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft, will grace SA with a visit next week.
Selected members of the media were invited to attend a breakfast presentation at which the great man himself will speak.
However, the strictly non-transferable invitation to the press not only expects them to arrive almost an hour before breakfast with positive identification - which seems reasonable - but includes the following shocking caveat: "Please note that the media will be accommodated at a separate press table within the venue and that you will not be permitted to ask questions during or after Mr Gates` presentation."
Now journalists exist to ask questions of important people, whom their readers may not otherwise have access to. That`s their job, their calling and their purpose.
Perhaps Microsoft`s media relations machine does not feel it has sufficient control over the local press?
Ivo Vegter, Deputy Editor, ITWeb Brainstorm
And indeed, a snap poll among some fellow journalists elicited reactions ranging from bewilderment to outrage. Trotting out Gates like some medieval emperor to receive the adulation of the grateful paupers over which he is lord and master, as one hack put it, is astonishingly arrogant. "What`s the point?" he exclaimed.
The only possible reason to attend a business breakfast with Gates is to obtain his perspective on some of the pressing local issues. Does Gates worry that the questions might be too tough? That the local media are not competent to ask questions of someone important like Gates? Perhaps Microsoft`s media relations machine does not feel it has sufficient control over the local press?
The official reason given by his PRs is that it`s a business breakfast, and while the media are to be gagged, the business attendees will be afforded "limited" opportunity to put questions to Gates. They could not explain whether "limited" means limited in number or limited in scope. They also sounded rather powerless to challenge the instructions of the formidable organisation that dictates such events from the US.
In the information age that Microsoft has helped create, one might expect that the seller of software such as MediaPlayer and NetMeeting, among other "productivity tools", would think of sending a video clip instead. Then the press could send cardboard cut-outs of themselves and sleep until nine.
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