Goodbye, Bill
Posted 10 January 2008 at 12:30PM by Ian Betteridge in Light relief
Having delivered his eleventh and final keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft's Bill Gates is set to take his leave of the company he founded. The world's richest man will, as of July, be retired from the company.
There are few people in history who come to dominate an industry the way that Gates has done. Certainly, in the history of business, he ranks as one of the leading figures - if not the most successful businessman of all time, then one of the top three.
And his commitment to philanthropy may make him arguably the most influential man in history. The trust fund for the Gates Foundation, largely donated by him, already stands at $37 billion, and has already distributed $14 billion to causes as diverse as Chicago schools, Save the Children, and vaccination against malaria. Thanks to that last effort alone, the lives of thousands of children around the world may be saved.
Of course, Gates' contributions to business haven't all been perfect. No company which has had itself dragged through courts in the US and Europe over anti-competitive, monopolistic behaviour can claim to be too virtuous.
And in the world of computing, while Gates leaves a legacy of Windows being the dominant operating system installed on hundreds of millions of machines worldwide, few people regard the company's products with love or affection. Microsoft, as a brand, does not have the kudos of Apple nor its set of loyal - sometimes fanatical - followers.
As well as the hits - Windows, Office - there have been misses. Microsoft BOB, for example, was a user interface designed to be truly easy to use that simply baffled or amused the handful of people who bought it. Tablet PCs, which Gates has personally championed for years, have yet to take off. And Zune, the music player designed to be a rival to the iPod, has failed to set the world alight.
Yet the worlds of computing and business will be slightly less interesting now that Gates is moving on. Hopefully, his next career - as a full time philanthropist, at the Gates Foundation - will keep him in the news for even more important reasons than making software.
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Tags: apple, bill gates, bt, bt broadbandoffice, gates foundation, iphone, microsoft, save the children
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Comments
2. At January 10, 2008 4:24 PM, Ian Betteridge wrote:
Even if he gave away 95% of his fortune, he'd still have a few billion dollars salted away - so I don't think he'll need to claim his bus pass!
3. At January 11, 2008 9:39 AM, Zaphod wrote:
Given that he sold MSDOS to IBM when he didn't own it, and continued to be less than ethical in his quest for Microsoft to become a near monopoly, it is easy to believe those who say he gave so much away later on in his career in an attempt to buy a place in the public's heart. Or as the American Evangelists said, did he suddenly realise his mortality and so was trying to buy his way out of Hell by giving the money away? Who knows? Or more to the point, who cares?
4. At January 11, 2008 11:57 AM, Anjanesh wrote:
anyone noticed that at CES Bill's tablet PC failed to access the internet ? and that Intel got the blue screen of death at their presentation.
Pun aside , Bill Gates contribution to popularise desktop computing should not be undermined . Methinks just because he is chairman no more dose'nt mean microsoft would not be influenced by him.
5. At January 12, 2008 2:03 PM, Tanvir Ahmad wrote:
Finally!
6. At January 14, 2008 3:28 PM, Isaac Yankem wrote:
So if Bill Gates is only in the top3 most successful businessmen, who are the other two?
Vince MacMahon? Ted Turner?
7. At January 16, 2008 11:01 AM, Ian Betteridge wrote:
Well Isaac, I'm really thinking "in history" here. I think that Gates would rank up there with Henry Ford and John D Rockefeller, in the sense that all three changed the world as well as making a lot of money.
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1. At January 10, 2008 2:56 PM, Carl Lotter wrote: