CYBERJAYA, Malaysia — Software magnate Bill Gates paid his first visit to the Malaysian prime minister's fledgling multimedia city modeled after Silicon Valley on Wednesday, declaring it "really awesome."
"I applaud this move," Gates told reporters in Cyberjaya township, 50 miles south of Kuala Lumpur.
A pet project of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's, Cyberjaya is part of the Southeast Asian nation's hugely hyped Multimedia Super Corridor, or MSC.
The smart city starts at the southern edge of the capital, Kuala Lumpur, and connects a 30-by-9-mile zone to a new multibillion-dollar international airport. Officials envisage high-tech offices, homes and shopping centers here, and they expect the MSC to generate 35,000 jobs and attract $5.2 billion in investment over the next five years.
Gates on Monday praised Malaysia's plan to gather as many multinational corporations as possible in the MSC. He warned, however, that it is crucial for Mahathir's government to let market forces determine the kind of software projects and high-tech initiatives that would be implemented there.
"You don't want the government to be picking. You want the marketplace to do it," Gates said following an official tour of the zone.
Gates arrived in Malaysia early Wednesday and was slated to leave later in the day. The world's wealthiest entrepreneur is here to tout his company's latest corporate strategy, dubbed Microsoft.NET, which will change the way Microsoft writes software and handles customers.
Within five years, Microsoft hopes customers will pay subscription fees to download software from the Internet instead of making one-time purchases at stores or Web sites.
The Microsoft chairman, who last visited Malaysia in early 1998, is here for the third time. He sits on an advisory panel that helps Mahathir formulate the country's information technology policies.