Essay/Term paper: Bill gates
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William Henry Gates, III was born October 28, 1955 in
Seattle, Washington. He was the middle child of three born
to William and Mary Gates. ATrey, as he was called
because of the III, was sent to a private school by his
father, a lawyer, and mother, a former teacher now on
several prestigious boards (Moritz, 238). At age 13, Bill
had completely taught himself programming after taking
computer studies class. After scoring a perfect 800 on the
mathematics half of the SAT, he graduated from Lakeside
school and enrolled at Harvard University as a prelaw
major. As a student, Gates was a wonder. He received an
A in an economics class without attending and cramming
the night before the final exam. In June 1975, Bill Gates
dropped out of Harvard to pursue a career in computers
full time.
Later that year after dropping out of Harvard he moved to
New Mexico. There he and Allen Kay established
Microsoft to produce their Basic for the MITS. Eighteen
months later they were a few hundred thousand dollars
richer and were hired by Tandy to develop software for its
radio shack computers. Gates and Allen then moved their
headquarters to Seattle, Washington. In Seattle, Gates
re-wrote an operating system and called it MS-DOS,
which stands for Microsoft Disk Operating System.
Microsoft would eventually sell the rights of MS-DOS to
IBM, making it a major computer corporation. Other
computer companies wanted Microsoft to produce
software for their computers, including Steve Jobs and
Steve Wozniak of Apple computers. With the operating
system established, Gates and Microsoft set out to create
applications software, for tasks such as financial analysis or
word processing. Microsoft has continued being successful
through the years and will be in the future as long as !
it keeps innovating new and exciting computer software.
Bill Gates has his eye on the future. He sees the world in a
Apowerful, high-speed network-both within companies
and across the so called Information Superhighway@
(Brandt, 57). He hopes to be on top of the Transformation
from Personal Computers to nets. Gates predicts that an
explosion of low-cost, high-capacity, networks will
radically alter how we use technology in the upcoming
decade.
Now before Bill Gates came onto the scene in the early
seventies, the main focus in the computer world was
hardware. Chips, circuit boards, capacitors and controllers
these were what computers were all about at this time.
Companies like IBM, Compaq and Apple were at the
head of the pack in the Aindustry that pushed hefty boxes
of metal and plastic and silicon at thousands ob bucks a
pop.@(Manes, 4) No one had yet attempted to tap the
software business, a market that was inevitably going to
grow as fast of faster than its complimentary hardware
market. Bill gates saw this opportunity and took advantage
of it.
When William Henry Gates came into the world in the year
1955, the fledgling computer industry was still trying to
spread its wings and fly. AOn the day he was born in
1955, fewer then 500 electronic computers had existed in
the entire world, their total retail value amounted to less
then $200 million, and the term Asoftware@ had not yet
been coined.@(Manes, 2) Bill first laid a hand on a
computer in 1968 while in junior high school. The computer
business was rapidly transforming at this time, and so was
Bill Gates. He saw the real profitable side of computers
was not their hardware. Rather it was the software end of
the business. Good software is what makes a computer
exciting and easy to use. Bill Gates grabbed this concept
and ran with it. The result: As of 1993 AGates was
personally worth more than $2 billion@, and his company,
Microsoft, was Avalued at more than $7 billion.@(Manes,
2)
As Microsoft and the software industry grew, the computer
hardware manufacturers no longer saw the opportunity to
exploit Bill Gates= company, as they had done initially with
BASIC, one of the first programs Microsoft produced.
Rather, they saw Bill Gates and Microsoft as the Controller
of their destinies. Microsoft software had become so
popular that if your hardware could not run it, you were
certain of defeat. Throughout the early 80's, Bill was the
ruler of the computer industry. AHis decisions on which
machines to back and which to ignore helped to make
companies and break them. Heads of firms that created
computers and microprocessors regularly make pilgrimages
to Microsoft=s wooded headquarters in Redmond,
Washington, to sit at the feet of the master.@(Manes, 4)
In 1986, Microsoft again revolutionized the computer
industry and launched its first version of Windows.
Microsoft called Windows an Aoperating environment,@
meaning it was designed mainly to run other programs. The
difference between this system and the original BASIC
language was that Windows incorporated a Graphical user
interface or AGUI@, (pronounced as Agooey@) as it was
known in the industry. This interface gave a symbolic
representation of a desktop to every computer screen
across the country, complete with little pictures called
Aicons@ to signify different files and programs. Opening
these files and programs was like opening different
Awindows@, hence the name. Finally, non-Macintosh
personal computers had become user friendly; no longer
was it seen by the majority of the consuming public as a
cold, high-tech piece of equipment whose secrets could
only be unlocked by some alien script.
The first seven years after the announcement of windows,
however, was not exactly smooth sailing for Bill Gates and
Microsoft. AOver those seven years, the windows story
had been one of tepid reviews, backhanding compliments,
empty hype, sluggish sales.@(Manes, 7) If these problems
were not enough, in the same period, Apple computer,
headed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, had sued
Microsoft accusing the company of stealing their Macintosh
ideas for the Windows application.
Despite all of these setbacks, Windows finally caught on
and spread like wildfire. Since its introduction, Microsoft
has introduced numerous updated versions of the original
windows application software, the most recent being
Windows 95. Like the introduction of the original Windows
program ; however, the Windows 95 version was anything
but smooth. Microsoft again found itself in another legal
battle, but this time it was up against the U.S. Justice
Department. AAlthough the department will confirm only
that it is conducting an unspecified investigation in the
computer industry, it appears to have launched three
antitrust probes into Bill Gates empire.@ reported the June
24, 1995 issue of the Economic magazine. (The Economist,
59) The basis behind these probes was focused upon
possible misuse of licensing agreements and royalty fees by
Microsoft with many personal computer makers.
Just as the operating software of Bill Gates and Microsoft
become the standard of personal computers, so would Mr.
Gates like to dominate the software end of the up and
coming multimedia market. This market spans from virtual
reality video games to interactive multimedia programming
on cable television. To begin its movement into this market,
Gates now has a contract to Asupply software to Sega, a
Japanese video-games maker whose central character, a
hyperactive hedgehog called Sonic, is the industry=s hottest
property.@ In addition to Sega, AMr. Gates has also been
talking to Time Warner and TCI about forming a venture,
to be known as CableSoft, that should set standards for
interactive TV.@(The Economist, 73)
Bill Gates and his company Microsoft have been at the
head of the rapidly changing computer industry for much of
its existence. If profit margins and stock prices continue to
grow and Microsoft products continue to be household
names, the duo will remain in this position will into the
future.
Bibliography
1. Manes, Stephen; Andrews, Paul; Gates - How
Microsoft=s Mogul Reinvented An Industry - And Made
Himself The Richest Man In America. Doubleday 1993
2. AA Trojan hedgehog@, The Economist. January 22,
1994, p.73-74
3. AHigh noon for Billy the Kid?@, The Economist. June
24, 1995, P.59-60
4. Bitter, Gary G. AWillian H. Gates.@ Macmillan
Encyclopedia of Computers. Macmillan Publishing: New
York, NY, 1992, P.409-410.
5. Brandt, Richard. ABill Gate=s Vision.@ Business
Week. June 27, 1994, P.56-62.
6. Moritz, Charles. AWilliam Gates.@ Current Biography.
H.W. Wilson Company: New York, NY, 1991,
P.237-241.