There are two trends going on in communication devices simultaneously. Laptops, like this Sony ultra, ultraportable, are shrinking to just one pound, and phones get packed with multi-media and messaging features.

Gates referred to how the ‘form factor’ –geekspeak for the size and shape of a device– is changing the way we communicate in this speech in May 2004.

So, you can see the phone is moving up in capabilities, the PC is moving down in size, and you’ll even see some overlap as they try and cover everybody’s different styles and communications needs.

The underlying theme of his speech was about empowerment. He touched on Wi-Fi, seamless computing, and “a thing called blogging.”