https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-6501528/microsoft-s-thi...

The 1988 Microsoft CD-ROM Conference held in Seattle in March, attracted about 2,000 industry insiders. The tone and ambience of the conference reflect a definite change in the industry. Most companies were represented not only by top management, but by their marketing personnel. Few blue-jeaned engineers or techies were found in the crowds. CD-ROM appears to have arrived.

FINDING A PATHWAY TO THE FUTURE

In his keynote address, Bill Gates, Microsoft's founder and chairman, reiterated his goat of making computers affordable and attractive enough to be "on every desk, in every home." Gates reported that less than 50,000 CD-ROM drives are currently in the marketplace. These are either in very narrow vertical markets, such as libraries, or are being used by the industry itself. The problem of low drive sales is compounded by the high cost of developing a multimedia product. Gates estimated that it costs $1 million for each disk product, an investment that many companies have been unwilling or unable to make.

The lack of a "rich standard for audio-visual" components of CD-ROM development, and the limited tools available to developers today, are two other important reasons Gates cited for the slow growth of the CD-ROM industry.