Speech by Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Chairman and CEO of IBM in Beijing

IBM has enjoyed a relationship with 中国 that has endured for more than half a century. But I do not believe there has ever been a more exciting time to be doing business here, as vast new opportunity is created by your sweeping modernization and ambitious government-led reform programs for thousands of state-owned『国有的』 enterprises.

This transformation, I believe, will underscore『在…下划线；强调』 the critical importance of information technology as a driver of competitive success and real economic growth for 中国.

So today, I want to talk to you about what I believe has to be the agenda『议程』 of a leader of an enterprise-business, government agency, university, hospital, bank anywhere in the world-the agenda regarding this technology.

Some of you know that before I came to IBM, my background was a lot like yours. I was a customer of IBM. I was a customer of the computer industry. I arrived at IBM with a firmly held conviction『信念』that this technology is one of those transformational technologies that comes along every hundred years or so and changes everything in our society.

Today, in almost every industry in almost every part of the world there are many examples of enterprises applying this technology challenges for their competitors, I think we're seeing informantion technology reach the point that all transformational technologies reach when they are no longer controlled by just a small group of skilled professionals, and they cross over to『转到』mass acceptance and ubiquity.
Networking technology is still in its infancy『初期』, yet it has reached already the point where we can call it a new mass medium.

Less than 5 years after the birth of the World Wide Web, some 90 million people are online around the world, and that number will be hundreds of millions before too long.
Here in 中国, the number of Internet users has nearly doubled since just last October, to more than 1 million users. And I've seen statistics that say your Internet population will exceed 7 million people by the year 2001.

IBM董事长兼CEO在北京的演说

IBM和中国的合作已长达半个多世纪。但是我认为和中国做生意，以前从未有过比现在更令人鼓舞的时刻；因为贵国的全面现代化和在政府领导下的对成千上万国营企业雄心勃勃的改革计划为我们提供了新的、广阔的机遇。

我认为，对中国而言，信息技术作为在竞争中取胜和真正经济增长的推动力量，它在这场变革中的重要作用将得到进一步加强。

所以，今天我想和各位谈一谈信息技术。我认为它必定已列入世界各地企事业机构领导人的议事日程，不管是企业、政府部门、大学、医院还是银行。

各位当中有些人知道，在来IBM任职之前，我的背景在许多方面和你们都是一样的。我那时是IBM的客户，或者说我是计算机产业的客户。到IBM任职时，我有一个坚定的信念：信息技术是一项划时代的技术；这样的技术一百年左右才会出现一次，而且它的到来会改变人类社会的一切。

今天，在世界上几乎每一个角落的几乎任何一个产业里，都有许多企业通过运用信息技术来获得竞争优势，向竞争对手展开挑战。我认为我们正在目睹信息技术进入所有划时代的技术都会经历的一个重要阶段，它们不再只为少数专业人员所掌握，而转变到为大众所接受，并无处不在。

虽然网络技术还处于初级阶段，但是它已经可以被称为一个新的大众媒体。

万维网的诞生还不到五年，全球已有九千万人在使用它。不需要多久，它使用的人将数以万计。

在中国，自去年10月到现在，互联网使用者的人数已翻了一翻，达到100多万。我所掌握的的统计资料表明，到2001年，中国互联网使用者将超过7百万人。