William Howard Gates III, better known as Bill Gates, was born on 28
October 1955 in Seattle, Washington. He is best known as co-founder of
software giant Microsoft™ Corporation, a company he and Paul Allen bootstrapped in 1979. The enormous success of Microsoft has amassed the entrepreneur
an astounding fortune, earning him the title of “richest man in the
world” from 1995 - 2007, according to Forbes Magazine. As of 2007, Bill
Gates’ worth is estimated at $59 billion US Dollars (USD).
Bill
Gates was born to a well-to-do family, his father a successful lawyer,
his mother a board member for First Interstate Bank. Gates has two
siblings, Kristianne and Libby. Throughout grammar school Gates excelled
in math and science, and enrolled in Lakeside, an exclusive preparatory
school.
At Lakeside the young Bill Gates was exposed to his first computers
in the form of Teletype terminals networked to a remote server. Use of
the Teletype required purchasing time blocks from the server. Gates and
his Lakeside friends were banned from one system after administrators
learned the kids were exploiting bugs (flaws) in the system to acquire
free time.
Gates quickly developed a passionate interest in computer operating systems, source code and computer languages, including BASIC, FORTRAN,
LISP and COBOL. He and Allen were soon getting work searching for
vulnerabilities in existing systems and writing proprietary programs.
By age 14 Gates founded a short-lived venture with Allen that earned
Gates $20,000 USD in the first year.
Interested in law, Bill Gates enrolled in Harvard College in 1973,
but the world would have different plans for the future software mogul.
Just two years into Harvard Gates took a leave of absence to work with
Allen writing an operating system (OS) for what is now considered to be
the prerunner to personal computers, the Altair 8800. The two young men
formed a partnership they initially called “Micro-soft,” later
shortening to “Microsoft” to be trademarked in November 1976.
Perhaps foreshadowing things to come, the Altair operating system
that Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote was widely copied and shared among
computer enthusiasts, prompting Gates to write an open letter
in February 1976. In his letter Gates conveyed his distress at having
people use the OS without making payment, stressing the time and work
that goes into programming and the inability to provide quality software
without fair compensation.
Four years later in 1980, IBM approached Gates to provide an
operating system for an upcoming personal computer line. Gates suggested
86-DOS, an operating system written by Tim Patterson of Seattle
Computer Products (SCP). Gates subsequently negotiated with SCP to make
Microsoft the sole licensing agent of 86-DOS and eventually full owner,
never mentioning the potential mega-contract with IBM. Microsoft adapted
the OS, renamed it “PC-DOS” and asked IBM for a one-time fee, retaining
copyright.
When IBM clones hit the market as Bill Gates predicted they would, every
computer required a copy of Microsoft’s operating system, licensed
directly from Microsoft.
If MS-DOS opened the door to Bill Gates’ legendary status in the
computer world, the Windows™ operating system kicked it wide open. While
MS-DOS was a text-based command-line OS, Windows revolutionized the
personal computer world, providing an easy, graphical, point-and-click
interface that made computers accessible to everyone. The market
exploded from a relatively small community of computer geeks to the general public, and businesses large and small.
The Windows OS created a de facto monopoly for Bill Gates in
the IBM PC market. Microsoft frequently bought out small up-and-coming
companies that were developing popular software packages, absorbing the
products into the Microsoft line. In many cases Bill Gates was
criticized for his aggressiveness in forcing out competition. This came
to a head in the mid 90’s when Microsoft packaged Internet Explorer with
Windows 95, essentially “pushing” its browser upon new computer users,
usurping Netscape™’s market share. In 1998 the U.S. Department of Justice brought charges against Microsoft in an antitrust case, eventually ending with a ruling against the software giant.
In 1994 Bill Gates married Microsoft employee Melinda Ann French.
They had three children: Jennifer (b. 1996), Rory (b. 1999) and Phoebe
(b. 2002). Gates has received honorary doctorates from universities in
the Netherlands, Sweden, Tokyo and from Harvard. In 2000 he and Melinda
founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, donating
billions to improve global health care, fight AIDS, improve educational
opportunities and provide scholarships. Gates also received an honorary
Knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 2005, and was named one of the
most influential people of the 20th Century by Time Magazine.
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Oh ayan. kupleto-rekado na ang tungkol kay Bill Gates kung saan isa siya sa mga pinakamayamang tao sa buong mundo dahil na rin sa kanyang paghihirap sa in the world of computers. Take note, he was a dropped-out student, pero hindi nagtagal naging successful siya sa kanyang career. (Mag-dropped out na nga rin ako baka maging katulad ko rin siya someday...hehe..biro lang)
Photo courtesy from: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/04/dayintech_0404
Article courtesy from: http://wisegeek.com
