Bill Gates. American businessman, co-founder of the software company Microsoft , producer of the most used operating system for personal computers in the world , Microsoft Windows . For his policy of expanding the use of Microsoft products at all costs , he has been accused of a monopoly on several occasions and his company has been brought to trial. For several years he has had one of the greatest personal fortunes in the world.
Biographical synthesis
He was born on October 28 , 1955 . He is the son of William Henry Gates II, a prominent lawyer, and Mary Gates, a professor at the University of Washington and director of the First Interstate Bank. With them and his sister, two years older, he lived in the city of Seattle , in the state of Washington . Until sixth grade he was a regular student at a public school.
Childhood
During their elementary school, Bill Gates and his sister were rewarded for every “A” (equivalent to 100 points) they earned. But, his sister always charged and he did not since his behavior left much to be desired.
In an attempt to change the rebellious behavior of their son the Gates decided to send him to the Lakeside School, since this school included an academic method to teach students to improve their behavior and their responsibility in the study . William’s parents upon seeing this decided that this was the right place for their son Bill Gates.
His first contact with computers and the programming language was in 1968 , while he was in the eighth grade. That same year Lakeside College, like very few others in the United States , purchased a network of computers interconnected by a telephone line. It was there that he met his future business partner Paul Allen . At that time, with only 13 years of age, he began programming and earning his first income from it.
College era and Microsoft Foundation
Between 1973 and 1976 pursuing studies at the University of Harvad and in collaboration with his friend Paul Allen , he was introduced to the world of computing into a small team dedicated to the realization of programs sold to businesses or public administrations.
He created the software company Microsoft on April 4 , 1975 , while still a student at Harvard University. In 1976 he left the university and moved to Albuquerque, Altair headquarters, to agree with that company the transfer of a language for computers , Basic, to 50% of sales. The following year , he learned of the success of the Apple company and that they needed a Basic interpreter.
In 1980 , he met with IBM representatives in Seattle . He managed to sell them the DOS operating system, even though he didn’t have it yet, which became the first milestone in Microsoft’s life . The contract was signed with IBM for the distribution of the MS-DOS operating system , under the name PC-DOS, in the year. This product, formerly called Q-DOS, was purchased by Microsoft from Seattle Computer Products for $ 50,000. Years later, the latter sued Microsoft (and obtained a compensation of 1 million dollars) for having concealed its contract with IBM at the time of the acquisition.
The key fact is that IBM did not buy MS-DOS from Microsoft, but offered it a redistribution agreement (allowing the latter to retain the rights to it). The reason for such a decision, not at all convenient on the part of IBM and which was decisive in the future of Microsoft, is a mystery. Some explain it by the employment relationship between Gates’ mother and IBM CEO John Opel, who at that time were directors of the United Way company.
Birth of Microsoft Windows
Aware of the importance of the graphical environment that Apple had shown (originally the graphical interface and the ” mouse ” were developed by Xerox PARC) on their Lisa computer, they also set out to get the graphical environment and the ” mouse ” to operate it. While Steve Jobs , founder of Apple, began the development of the Macintosh , Bill Gates visited Apple. It offered to improve its spreadsheets and other programs. It threatened to sell its computer equipment to IBM, thus obtaining an Apple-Microsoft alliance. Microsoft legally obtained the mouse and graphics environment technology and released Microsoft Windows, as a direct competitor to the Macintosh.
Windows, released in 1985 but was not stable until 1990 , was the first graphical environment widely available on computers compatible with IBM-PC. From a technical point of view, it was far from introducing anything new, since there were other similar environments of much higher quality .
The triumph of Windows over the system offered by Apple was not due to the technical virtues of the first. This is one of the keys to the proprietary software distribution model : quality is not the priority, but the provider’s commercial ability.
The millions of profits in the 1990s turned into billions and Microsoft managed to become a monopoly . At the height of the dot.com boom in 1999 , Bill Gates’ wealth was estimated to be $ 90 billion (according to Forbes ). It became (and still is) one of the most profitable companies in the world and flooded the market with its products .
Microsoft provided functions for Internet access in its operating systems in 1993 using the Internet Explorer browser . The history of errors and problems related to Internet Explorer (which was not a Microsoft development, but was acquired from another company and renamed) is profuse, however, in recent years it has improved significantly. Free alternatives have emerged such as the Mozilla Firefox browser , which also runs on several different platforms and is increasingly popular among Internet users despite not being included in the Windows installation CD.
Other data
He is married to Melinda Gates married on 1 of January of 1993 in a secret location in Hawaii , wanted no would make reporter photos , so he rented to the full all the hotels in the island , they have a daughter named Jennifer Bellamy Gates, who was born on April 26 , 1996 . Both hold the leadership of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation , dedicated (at least in appearances) to rebalancing opportunities in health and education at the local level, especially in less favored regions, which is why they have been awarded the Prince of Asturias AwardInternational Cooperation 2006 .
Bill Gates is second in the annual list of the greatest personal fortunes made by Forbes magazine, with assets calculated around 53 billion US dollars in 2010 surpassed by Carlos Slim with 53.5 billion.
On June 16, 2006, he made public his intention to abandon his daily work at Microsoft in 2008 to dedicate himself entirely to the foundation. On June 27, 2008, he left his duties at the helm of Microsoft, handing over control of the company to Steve Ballmer ; Initially, Bill Gates will have 70% of his time dedicated to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the other 30% to the company.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Bill Gates recently pledged to donate $ 750 million in 2005 to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Gates, along with rock star Bono and Tony Blair , stated that “2005 must be the turning point for poverty in Africa .”
Much has been written about the generosity of Bill Gates and his foundation. Gates is generally portrayed as the greatest benefactor on the planet but in reality, the Gates Foundation is the richest charitable organization in the world . Its annual income exceeds that of many small countries .
The Los Angeles Times wonders: why is the richest charitable institution in the world, at the same time, a shareholder of companies that are at the origin of the sanitary and ecological contamination that it claims to combat? And he cites the Gates Foundation, which donated 218 million dollars for a vaccination campaign against Poliomyelitis and rubella throughout the world, including the Niger River Delta . But at the same time, the Foundation invested 423 million dollars in the companies ENI, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and Total, companies responsible for most of the gas emissions that pollute the skies.from that region of the Niger River, at levels even higher than those tolerated in the United States and Europe .
On a tour of India , where he went to collect on behalf of the foundation he presides over with his wife, the Indira Gandhi Peace, Disarmament and Development Prize , Gates spoke about US immigration at a forum in New Delhi .
Gates criticized the immigration policy and the harshness of his country’s congress on this matter, which in his opinion ” is terrible for the United States and also for the world .” “Why can’t you make exceptions for smart people with engineering degrees and let those people stay ?” wondered Gates, who asks for more Indian graduates to work among others in his company, although he does not seem to ask for ” exceptions ” for other ” less intelligent ” immigrants .
Bill Gates and the Free Software Movement
In 1984 , the American Richard Stallman established a community of programmers to create together a new operating system (the “mother” software ), in the manner of the ” old hackers ” who shared programs. He threw the idea on an email distribution list , and little by little a good group of creators was added through these lists. From here arose in 1990 the GNU / Linux system , the mother of Free Software . Stallman and his foundation FSF ( Free Software Foundation) also defined that free software is that which contemplates these four freedoms for users :
- use the program for any purpose;
- access to the source code to adapt it;
- be able to distribute copies;
- be able to improve it and make the improvements public.
Bill Gates’s comparison of free software with “modern” communism has led to an intense debate among the “hacker” community . Some do not like it, while others take pride in seeing free software as a true engine of change in the economic system.
The fact is that the internal functioning among the Hacker community is as it would have to be in a future socialist society : the workers work for the community, they own the means of production and enforce the maximum of “of each according to their ability, to each according to his need. “
The free software production system would be ideal operating in a non-capitalist economy , but it will never be the definitive solution to social injustices. We find again the classics, for example in Lenin , an interesting reflection in this sense:” Freedom of the press is a main slogan of pure democracy . This freedom will be a deception as long as the best printing presses and the great reserves of paper are in the hands of the capitalists and as long as the power of capital over the press exists.”
Today Microsoft is a mega-corporation with thousands of patents. Microsoft said in court that Windows’ main competitor is “Linux”, referring to the free operating system GNU / Linux. Leaked internal documents say that Microsoft is trying to use software patents to stop development of GNU / Linux.
Capitalism means monopoly; at least, Gates-style capitalism. The people who think that anyone should be free to run a program, free to write complex software, are communists, ”says Mr. Gates. But those communists have even infiltrated Microsoft’s boardroom. Here’s what Bill Gates said to Microsoft employees in 1991 :”If people had understood how patents were going to be granted, when most of today’s ideas were invented, and they had patented them, the industry would be totally frozen today … A future emerging company, that had no patents, it would be forced to pay whatever price the giants chose to impose on it. “
Mr. Gates’s secret is now out – he too was a “communist”; he, too, recognized that software patents were harmful – until Microsoft became one of those giants. Now Microsoft is trying to use software patents to impose the price it chooses on consumers, and if end users and the general public don’t agree, Mr. Gates will call them “communists.”
The trial against Microsoft
Who is who at trial? Bill Gates. President and founder of Microsoft . Paul Maritz. Vice President of Microsoft. The government accuses him of being the main promoter of the alleged war for the Internet browser market . James Allchin. Microsoft Vice President in charge of Windows 98 . The government accuses him of writing emails that could prove that Microsoft engaged in unfair competition.
Janet Reno Attorney General of the US state, and therefore ultimately responsible for the process against Microsoft. James Barksdale. President of Netscape , a company that makes the browser that competes with Microsoft. David Colburn Vice President of the business area of America On Line ( AOL ), a company that reached an agreement to distribute Microsoft’s browser program to its thirteen million customers .
Steve McGeady. Vice President of Intel Corporation, a company that has dedicated most of its research and development to Internet and Java related programs . The government accuses Microsoft of having tried to banish Intel from this market, since it represented serious competition for its interests.
Avie Tevanian. Vice President of Apple , who was in charge of the development and marketing of Quicktime, Apple’s program for multimedia applications, and which was in direct competition with Microsoft’s Netshow.
Beginning of the trial After several delays, Microsoft (the largest software company in the world and first in capitalization) sat on 19 October of the year spent on the bench of a court in Washington . The multiple charges against the software company are summarized in one: monopolistic practices against free competition in order to control the software market and the Internet.
Attempts at a settlement between Bill Gates’ company and the Department of Justice failed, as did Microsoft’s attempts to delay the investigation of the case. The trial marks a milestone in the history of the United States, a country that takes great care of interference in the market. Among the precedents is the antitrust suit against Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and the ATT telephone company. Both were forced by a court to split in two to break their excessive dominance in the market. However, the outcome in the Microsoft case is more uncertain. First, because it is difficult to control technological innovation, the Justice Department considered a common good, and secondly because one of the scenarios alleged monopolistic practices is the Internet, one of the land less regulated right now.
Keys to the trial Accusers: The Department of Justice is leading the monopoly complaint, along with the attorneys general from 20 other states in the country. The legal team is made up of 24 lawyers. The star jurist is David Boies, who represents the Department. Boies was the successful defender of IBM in a similar lawsuit.
Defenders: Microsoft has a legion of lawyers and publicists working on the case. The latter have tried to control the damages caused by the company in this long judicial process. Microsoft’s stellar attorney is John Warden, a partner in a prestigious New York law firm.
Count One: Connecting Browsers, after realizing it was lagging behind on the Internet, Microsoft embarked on an expansive strategy. He was trying to get his Explorer browser to outsell its rival Netscape. That is why it integrated the browser into its Windows operating system, used by 90% of personal computers. Being pre-installed, users had no choice but to use Explorer. First defense: Microsoft defends this claim as part of its product improvement. The company has already won part of this case because an appeals judge ruled that the integration of Explorer with the Windows 95 operating system was legal .
Second charge: conspiracy to divide the market through a series of meetings and messages email, Microsoft proposed the cake Netscape Internet market were shared. The pivotal test was a June 21 meeting between Netscape President James Barksdale and Microsoft executives. Second defense: Microsoft talks about cooperation with rivals and provides notes sent by Netscape that demonstrate the warmth of their relationships. As in most of the case, the company justifies these meetings as a global coordination to improve technology and better serve the public.
Third charge: Exclusive agreements, Microsoft pressured computer manufacturers to integrate the Windows operating system with Explorer, pre-installed in their new products. It also forced Internet companies, such as the America On Line service, to favor Explorer as their favorite browser. There is also evidence of bribery of the president of Intuit, who was supposed to receive a million dollars in exchange for including the Explorer browser in his Quicken account program.
Third defense: Microsoft has not quite won it, which is why it recently abolished agreements with computer manufacturers. For Microsoft, Intuit chose its browser because it was superior to Netscape’s. This was acknowledged by Netscape in an internal document. Count four: Attacks on Sun Microsystems. It constitutes another of the central positions, Microsoft obtained the license from Sun Microsystems to adapt its Java (the language to build pages on the Internet) to its Windows operating system. Later, Microsoft created new products for its Java-Windows that were incompatible with the original Java. This betrayal threatens the Sun market.
Fourth defense: It hides itself in technological innovation and the improvement of products for the client. It ensures that its contracts with Sun Microsystems allowed it. The plot of the trial. Bill Gates’s attorneys were finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the flood of evidence from the Justice Department. New evidence presented in the lawsuit against the software company shows how Microsoft pressured Apple, its long-time rival, to include the Explorer browser instead of Netscape’s Navigator on its computers.
But the $ 150 million ransom package had a clause: Apple computers had to pre-install Microsoft’s Explorer browser. In addition to the letter they sent, the prosecutors also presented incriminating documents from America On Line. This company, which provides online services to 15 million people around the world, was forced by Microsoft to install the Explorer browser, instead of the Navigator. Those responsible for America On Line acknowledged that, in return, Microsoft guaranteed that it would install the icon of this company in the Windows operating system.
The expected testimony of Bill Gates recorded was made public the 2 of November of 1998 in the room where the antitrust lawsuit is judged against the software company. In the video , the world’s richest businessman from the US defends himself with elusive answers, monosyllables and memory lapses of questions about his alleged plans to monopolize the global software market. The 60 minutes that the judge authorized to view correspond to the questions about his dealings with the Apple computer company. Gates repeatedly denies that he proposed sharing the multimedia software market to this company.
Bill Gates could not resist it, and after four weeks of silence, during which he had to listen to accusations from the vast majority of computer moguls, he came out of his apparent lethargy and responded. “The further the case progresses, the clearer it seems that a real effort is being made to superimpose the interests of a certain group of our competitors over the interests of the public and the economy,” Gates said at Microsoft’s annual shareholders’ meeting, held on Tuesday. November 11, 1998.
The Bill Gates who appeared before the partners of his company was not the same as a few years ago. Huraño, and concerned, assured in front of an audience of some 2,000 people that he has incredible respect for the North American judicial system, but that he has serious doubts about the case they are taking against the company he founded 23 years ago. Gates took advantage of this occasion to firmly deny the accusations, published by all the media, of attempted sabotage of Apple’s multimedia programs.
The trial is tense although during the first sessions and appearances everyone made an effort to keep their composure and endure the sticks that fell everywhere, Microsoft has said enough. After the third appearance of Steve McGeady, vice president of Intel, the lawyer of the company of Bill Gates assured that McGeady was an angry “prima donna” who had fabricated false evidence.
The defense of the company of Bill Gates assured in his turn of answer that the vice president of Intel was so excited about the prospect of a future without the competition of Microsoft, that he began to manufacture headlines and to agree with Netscape to pass the information to the press. McGeady acknowledged that he had given a dossier with unofficial information to the New York Times .
Justice Department prosecutor David Boies tried to portray McGeady as a trustworthy and representative person, who had first-hand information about possible illegal Microsoft practices. They even presented some emails from the vice president of Intel as proof of their accusations. In one of them, sent by himself to Andrew Grove, president of Intel, he told how he had received calls from Bill Gates threatening to destroy the Intel laboratories .
Laughter from the public at the trial The twenty-third day of trial against Microsoft was one of the funniest days since the sessions began. At the session held on December 2, 1998, the last part of Bill Gates’ videotaped statement was made public, and to the surprise of the Gates company lawyers, those in the room could not suppress the laughter every time. time Gates opened his mouth.
And it is that in this session of the trial, a doubtful Bill Gates could be seen again, and that he did not remember almost anything of what the prosecution lawyers asked him. And it is hard to believe that the all-powerful owner of Microsoft had no idea of the legal procedure that the Sun Microsystems company had imposed against his company, or that he was involved in the development of Microsoft’s Java.
Bill Gates. Thinking about the trial. The uncertain future of the trial The controversy over the reliability of McGeady’s statements increases by the day, especially the fact that he meets very frequently with the co-founder of Netscape, Jim Clark, with whom he has a good friendship. It would not be a fact of great importance unless they are the great competitors of Microsoft and also both have publicly declared their hatred for this company. Although Bill Gates has been harshly attacked by everyone in the course of the trial, his popularity with the company’s shareholders has not changed one iota. It continues to be hugely popular with people who have seen their investments grow 70% in the last year alone. Many of them even queue up outside sessions to ask Gates for an autograph.