A 10-year communications revolution will change the way businesses and people talk to each other, says Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.

Opening the Comdex show in Las Vegas, Gates said widespread adoption of affordable wireless technology and web services would change the IT landscape.

'We'll think about personal computing in a different way. The magic of the chip and the magic of software are now spreading out to all different devices and those devices are connecting up in very flexible ways, ' he told delegates.

Even in the 2002 downturn, we had taken big steps forward, he suggested, such as the formation of industry-wide web services interoperability groups.

Gates unveiled several new Microsoft products for consumers and businesses.

The next version of Office, due out next summer, will feature new applications to improve knowledge management and collaboration.

Office users will be able to access XML information in backend systems using XDocs. Microsoft OneNotes will allow users to organise meeting notes written in virtual ink or text, audio files and HTML using a drag and drop interface that links with Outlook.

New smart displays such as a portable slate-like intelligent monitor will allow users to surf the internet and send email away from the PC. The products will be available in Europe in the first quarter of next year.

Windows .Net Server 2003 release candidate 2 will be able in the next few weeks and Gates says the full release will be available in April next year. A new version of Visual Studio.Net development tools will also ship at that time.

The most unusual announcement was the culmination of an idea that began three years ago, says Gates.

Microsoft's smart personal object technology (Spot) group has been looking at embedding intelligence into small everyday devices. He showed a range of fridge magnets, key chains and wristwatches that were automatically updated with the time, weather, latest news and other information services.

Gates says the vendor hopes to sell an alarm clock based on Spot next year. It will always tell the right time, give a default wake up time based on user patterns, and check the weather, traffic and news to calculate the user's journey time to work.