| |
|
|
|
Industrialists
> Bill Gates
|
Bill
Gates
William Henry Gates III, KBE, (born October 28, 1955),
commonly known as Bill Gates, is the co-founder and current Chairman
and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft. According to Forbes magazine
in 2004, Gates is the wealthiest person in the world, a position he
has held steadily for many years.
Biography
Bill Gates was born in Seattle, Washington to William H. Gates, Sr.,
a corporate lawyer, and Mary Maxwell Gates, board member of First
Interstate Bank, Pacific Northwest Bell and the national board of
United Way.
|
 |
| |
Gates attended Lakeside School, Seattle's most exclusive prep school,
where he was able to develop his programming skills on the school's
minicomputer. He later on went to study at Harvard University, but
dropped out without graduating to pursue what would become a lifelong
career in software development.
While he was a student at Harvard, he co-authored with Paul Allen
the original Altair BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800 (the first
commercially successful personal computer) in the mid 1970s. It was
inspired by BASIC, an easy-to-learn programming language developed
at Dartmouth College for teaching purposes.
Gates married Melinda French on January 1, 1994. They have three children,
Jennifer Katharine Gates (1996), Rory John Gates (1999) and Phoebe
Adele Gates (2002). They live in a very large earth-sheltered home
in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington. It is a very modern
21st century house in the "Pacific lodge" style, with advanced
electrical and electronic systems everywhere. In one respect though
it is more like an 18th or 19th century mansion: It has a large private
library with a domed reading room.
Also in 1994, he acquired the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings
by Leonardo da Vinci; as of 2003 it was on display at the Seattle
Art Museum.
In 1997, Gates was the victim of a bizarre extortion plot by Chicago
resident Adam Quinn Pletcher. Gates testified at the subsequent trial.
Pletcher was convicted and sentenced in July 1998 to six years in
prison.
Microsoft
Corporation
In 1975, Gates and Allen co-founded Microsoft Corporation to market
their version of BASIC, called Microsoft BASIC. It was the primary
interpreted computer language of the MS-DOS operating system, and
was key to Microsoft's early commercial success.
In February 1976, Gates wrote the Open Letter to Hobbyists, which
shocked the computer hobbyist community by asserting that a commercial
market existed for computer software. Gates stated in the letter that
software should not be copied without the publisher's permission,
which he equated to piracy. While legally correct, Gates's proposal
was unprecedented in a community that was influenced by its ham radio
legacy and hacker ethic, in which innovations and knowledge were freely
shared in the community. Nevertheless, Gates was right about the market
prospects and his efforts paid off: Microsoft Corporation became one
of the world's most successful commercial enterprises, and a key player
in the creation of a retail software industry.
Microsoft's key moment came when in the late 1970s, IBM was planning
to enter the personal computer market with its IBM Personal Computer
(PC), which was released in 1981. Gates licensed MS-DOS to IBM, which
it had acquired from a local computer manufacturer. The story of how
Microsoft acquired the original system (QDOS) has inspired much folklore,
which often portrays Gates pouncing on a trivial mistake by Digital
Research and stealing that company's lead in microcomputer operating
systems. It is frequently cited by those who accuse Gates of unethical
business practices. In reality, IBM did approach Digital Research
for a version of CP/M for its upcoming IBM PC, and spoke to Gary Kildall's
wife Dorothy. IBM representatives wanted Dorothy to sign their standard
non-disclosure agreement, which Dorothy considered overly burdensome.
IBM then returned to talk to Microsoft. He obtained rights to a cloned
design of CP/M, QDOS, from Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer products,
licensed it to IBM, and MSDOS/IBMDOS was born. Later, IBM discovered
that Gates' operating system could have infringement problems with
CP/M, contacted Kildall, and in exchange for a promise not to sue,
made an agreement that CP/M would be sold along with IBMDOS when the
IBM PC was released. The price set by IBM for CP/M was $250 and for
MSDOS/IBMDOS it was $40. Obviously, MSDOS/IBMDOS outsold CP/M many
times over, eventually becoming the standard. By marketing MS-DOS
aggressively to manufacturers of IBM-PC clones, Microsoft gained unprecedented
visibility in the microcomputer industry, even rivalling IBM.
During the following years, Gates used his company's growing resources
to displace competitors such as WordPerfect, and Lotus 1-2-3, among
many others. It is alleged (although never explained in detail) that
Gates instructed Microsoft programmers to include special code in
one of the MS-DOS versions to make Lotus 1-2-3 produce errors, making
it appear to the users as if Lotus's software was the problem.
In the mid-1980s Gates became excited about the possibilities of compact
disc for storage, and sponsored the publication of the book CD-ROM:
The New Papyrus that promoted the idea of CD-ROM.
In the late 1980s, Microsoft and IBM partnered in the development
of a more advanced operating system, OS/2. The operating system was
marketed in connection with a new hardware design, the PS/2, that
was proprietary and secret to IBM. As the project progressed, Gates
oversaw continuing friction with IBM over the system's design, hardware
support, and user interface. Ultimately he came to believe that IBM
wanted to marginalize Microsoft from having any input in OS/2's development.
On May 16, 1991 Gates announced to Microsoft employees that the OS/2
partnership was over and Microsoft would henceforth focus its platform
efforts on Windows and the NT kernel. In the ensuing years OS/2 fell
to the side and Windows became the favored PC platform.
Some years later, Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser displaced
Netscape's Navigator, in a turn of events that many attributed to
Microsoft's inclusion of Internet Explorer in Windows at no extra
charge. An opposing view is that the inclusion in Windows was less
important in Internet Explorer's adoption than Microsoft's improvement
of the browser's features to a level comparable with Navigator.
As the architect of Microsoft's product strategy, Gates has aggressively
broadened the company's range of products and, once it has obtained
a leading position in a category, has vigorously defended that position.
His and other Microsoft executives' strategic decisions have more
than once drawn the concern of competition regulators, and in some
cases have been ruled illegal.
In 2000, Gates promoted long-time friend and Microsoft executive Steve
Ballmer to the role of Chief Executive Officer and took on the role
of "Chief Software Architect".
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
With his wife, Gates founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
a charitable organization. Critics have called this a response to
negative public outcry over the seemingly monopolistic and anti-competitive
practices of his company, but those close to Gates say that he had
long expressed his plan to eventually give away most (in 1997 the
Washington Post reported 90%) of his large fortune. The foundation's
grants have provided funds for underrepresented minority college scholarships,
AIDS prevention, diseases that strike mainly in the third world, and
other causes. In June 1999, Gates and his wife donated US$5 billion
to their foundation, the largest single donation ever by living individuals.
He has donated more than 100 million dollars to help kids with AIDS.
Accolades
Honorary
KBE from the United Kingdom announced, 2004
Top 100 influential people in media, the Guardian, 2001
The Sunday Times power list, 1999
Upside Elite 100, Ranked 2nd, 1999
Top 50 Cyber Elite, TIME magazine, Ranked 1st, 1998
Top 100 most powerful people in sports, The Sporting News, Ranked
28th, 1997
CEO of the year, Chief Executive Officers magazine, 1994Entomologists
have named the Bill Gates flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his honour.
Estimated
wealth
According
to Forbes list of the World's Wealthiest People (figures in US Dollars):
1996 - $18.5 billion, ranked #1
1997 - $36.4 billion, ranked #2
1998 - $51.0 billion, ranked #1
1999 - $90.0 billion, ranked #1
2000 - $60.0 billion, ranked #1
2001 - $58.7 billion, ranked #1
2002 - $52.8 billion, ranked #1
2003 - $40.7 billion, ranked #1
2004 - $46.6 billion, ranked #1 |
| |
|
|
Check
out these bestsellers, books & DVD's, offered in association
with Amazon.co.uk - some of the best prices on the web - links
open in a new window.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
