What he soaked in from the window of the British Airways flight to Delhi, the limousine which whisked him off from the Indira Gandhi airport or from Suite 2604 at the Maurya Sheraton may not have given him the full picture of the country which these days appears regularly on his mindscreen.
His itinerary did not include Bangalore, the software capital of the country, or the customary visit to the Taj which most visiting dignitaries do not usually miss.
Yet a dignitary he was, not just because he flew in as a guest of the Prime Minister or Because he was accorded security granted only to heads of states. Gates' visit, it appeared, was a s the apostle of today (not tomorrow, or the catchword of the visit was 'The Future is Now!"). Gates held techies and tycoons in his plans for the Information Age.
Perhaps aware that he did not have anything substantial to offer as investment, Gates concentrated on his role as the computer messiah, spreading his vision of what the future will be like.
"There's a dramatic change in how people go about finding information and it will transform the world and make it a smaller place," he said. Keyboards, mouse and printers will soon be replaced by superfast processors that can recognise voice. 'That day will com, " Gates declared, "because of the research of Microsoft and other companies."
Gates had a tete-a-tete with Finance Minister P.Chidambaram and followed it up with a breakfast meeting with Deve Gowda whom he had met in Davos.
These meetings were significant for the future functioning of Microsoft and to tackle one particular problem: software piracy.
More interesting were the one-to-one meetings Gates had with HCL's Shiv Nadar and NIIT's Rajinder Pawar. While Microsoft already has a training tie-up with NIIT, the talks he had with its parent company and the Indian front-runner HCL has led to speculation within the IT industry. Knowing Gates' skills in going for either tie-ups or buying out competition, the meeting with Nadar has added significance since HCL is believed to be preparing for major expansion in the software segment.
The lack of any major R&D investment decision was a damper. But said Gates, "It will be a couple of years before we choose our second major development location. We want to get a lot of experience so that we make the right move."
The only announcement he made was the Rs 3.5 crore investment for the university Advanced Technology Labs (UATL) programmes in three IITs besides the IIM and IISc in Bangalore. The labs will offer a range of courses, online education modules and info on latest technologies.
Gates' announcement of Microsoft's plans to bring out software packages in Hindi followed by other Indian languages made headlines, though few know that Apple launched that Indian Language Kit last month - in Hindi, Gujarati and Punjabi.
The hype and hoopla apart, the Indian IT industry had genuinely hoped for a thrust that only a visit like this could provide. Gates did not let them down.