Browser-based computing is becoming old fashioned, and both clients and servers still need significant advancement, according to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.

During his keynote speech at Comdex Fall 2000 in Las Vegas, Gates told delegates that the PC is not dead and the server has been neglected, rendering it unable to deliver clear information to users in a widely understandable format.

Gates introduced improvements to client-side computing, with demonstrations of the next version of Office, codenamed Office 10, and the next version of Windows, called Whistler.

"The browser model, which has been the focus of computing for the last five years, really is showing its age," said Gates. "We need development tools and standards which take off at a different level."

Napster-style peer-to-peer networking is great, Gates said, but "they can't just be client oriented, they need the server to be involved". Authentication and storage of huge data repositories are functions only the server can perform, he added.

Gates's remarks were all geared towards plugging Microsoft's .Net initiative, which will see applications delivered over the internet, requiring both the PC and the server to enable collaborative computing.

"You can't have one of these bottlenecked by the other, because you need major advances in both these areas of activity," he said.

At the heart of .Net is the XML programming language, which Gates described as "the key to where the [technology] industry should go". XML will feature in both Whistler, due in the second half of 2001, and Office 10.

On the server hardware side, Gates praised Intel's IA64 technology, Infiniband and 32 processor servers. He said this technology is enabling Microsoft to attract many high-volume websites, including web portal Lycos.

Gates concluded with a prediction that client and server-based computing, based around XML, would dominate the next phase of computing, while conceding that "people will look back and say the browser era was fantastic".