(William Henry Gates III, Seattle, Washington, 1955) computer scientist and entrepreneur, founder of Microsoft. The fortunes of this programmer early, he did not finish his studies at the age of 31 was already a billionaire, it comes from the successful operating system, MS-DOS (1981), which would evolve to become the popular Windows 3.1 (1992) and result in the successive versions of the operating system, now ubiquitous in most laptops and desktops.
Bill Gates
It is difficult to judge how much was luck or intuition noted that the emergence of consumer computing, was a valuable manufacturing equipment (hardware) and the creation of the operating system market and the programs that were to be used in them ( software). The truth is that while manufacturers competed hard for the hardware, a series of circumstances led to its operating system to spread until it is just unbeatable. In fact, it is often that accused Microsoft of monopolistic practices, and the lack of true creativity of its founder. But even admitting that, we must recognize that its effective popularization of computers (and the rapid technological escalation that has taken) contribution was immense.
BIOGRAPHY
Bill Gates was born into a wealthy family who gave him an education in elite centers of Lakeside School (1967-73) and Harvard University (1973-1977). Always in collaboration with his friend Paul Allen, is introduced into the computer world into a small team dedicated to the implementation of programs that were sold to companies or governments. In 1975 he moved to Albuquerque (New Mexico) to work MITS company providing a range of programs that can be used with the first microcomputer, the Altair, which had developed a version of the BASIC programming language.
That same year founded his own production company in Albuquerque company computer software, Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates as president and CEO. His business was adapted to the needs of new microcomputers and offer programs at cheaper manufacturers that if they had developed themselves. When, in 1979, Microsoft began to grow (who was then sixteen employees), Bill Gates decided to move its headquarters to Seattle.
The Business Software
In the early 1970s, the invention of the microprocessor allowed cheaper and reduce the size of the enormous computers before. It was a decisive step towards a dream long cherished by many industry-leading technology companies: build computers in size and reasonable price to take computing to allow all businesses and households. The first to arrive could start a highly lucrative and huge business potential. It was unthinkable that a company like Microsoft, dedicated only to the software (operating systems and programs) could play a role in this race among manufacturers of hardware, ie machines.
Paul Allen and Gates
And it was in the beginning: a competition among manufacturers of computers not very honest, because there was more of a plagiarism. In the mid 1970s, in a garage full of cans of oil and household goods, Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak designed and he built a computer circuit board, a whole show of innovation and imagination. At first they intended to sell only the board, but soon became convinced of the advisability of starting a company, Apple, and sell computers. In 1977 the sale of the second version of its personal computer, the Apple II, which is sold with an operating system created by Apple also began: a milestone that marks the birth of personal computing.
Rather naively, Apple made the mistake of giving other companies to meet the exact specifications of the Apple II. To develop its first personal computer, the IBM company copied and adapted the open architecture of Apple Computer, and chose the Intel 8088 microprocessor, which already handles 16-bit characters. Thus, in 1981, IBM was able to launch its first PC (Personal Computer, Personal Computer). However, the operating system on your PC, it is essential for its operation, had not been created by IBM, but by Microsoft. A year earlier, in 1980, Bill Gates had reached an agreement with IBM to provide an operating system adapted to their personal computers, MS-DOS, which, since 1981, can be installed on all computers of the brand.
IBM was a huge commercial success with your PC. With a price that, over the years, would be more affordable ever, any consumer could buy a small team whose applications not only increase and that covered both leisure and many work activities. But IBM also made mistakes in the use of the patent. Many companies, aware of the enormous boom that is dedicated to the manufacture and marketing of IBM-compatible PC, called on more economic jargon clonecomputer.
The market was flooded with the IBM compatible personal computers running Microsoft's operating system, which could come installed or purchased separately, since, although IBM had commissioned, MS-DOS was not his property; he had rights Retail Microsoft. Furthermore, in addition to companies and administrations, users do not always acquire the license MS-DOS. It was very easy to get a copy and install it without paying, a fact that encouraged further dissemination.
THE MS-DOS to Windows
However, there were other options, but they remained in the minority, thanks to its low cost, the combination more MS-DOS PC ended monopolize the market and become the norm. While computer manufacturers were trying to cut costs, delivered to a price war that no one could obtain a dominant position, the software company, Bill Gates, took virtually all operating systems and much market programs.
Thereafter, the expansion of Microsoft was spectacular. And not just because the computer needs an operating system to function, but also because programs and specific applications (word processor, a spreadsheet, a game) are developed on the basis of a particular operating system, and that the system was MS-DOS. Software (and including the same Microsoft) companies could develop, for example, different processors, competing to please the user. But as the vast majority of users had MS-DOS, the development of programs to work with MS-DOS, and they had done a favor Microsoft, which could assume that your operating system could run all programs imaginable: his own and almost all competition. That vicious feedback was the fabulous assets Microsoft and Bill Gates knew how to keep it.
MS-DOS, however, was slightly the environment, whose management requires knowledge of the commands entered via the keyboard. With the introduction in 1984 of the Macintosh personal computer, Apple seemed to take back the lead. Your windows system meant a qualitative leap; interface that simulates the distribution of a work by means of the table of icons. A small device, mouse, whose movement is reflected on the screen with a flashing icon, allowed to cross in search of the document or search program. Instead of having to remember each of the operations and typing commands at all times, it was enough to go to the lists of possible actions and click with the mouse on the option chosen.
For now, these innovations do not seem to overshadow Bill Gates. In 1983, Paul Allen left Microsoft, suffering from a serious illness. And when, in 1986, Microsoft went to the stock market, the shares are quoted so high that Bill Gates became the youngest billionaire in history. Dump in a process of accelerated technological innovation, and if more imitating the Apple Macintosh to innovate, Gates launched a Web interface for MS-DOS called Windows: Windows 1990, Windows 3.0 and 3.1 in 1992.
It was not, in fact, a new operating system, but, as he said, a graphical interface with mouse, icons and windows in which still run old MS-DOS, but it was very well received by users, who finally They had as intuitive as the Macintosh but much cheaper to run on a PC, through which prevailed easily in the market system. The huge success led to the true renewal was Windows 95 (in whose promotional campaign worldwide Gates himself took the role of prophet of the cyber society as personified Microsoft), which would be Windows 98 and subsequent versions This operating system, including Windows XP (2001), highlights the first game wholly owned newly minted aside the old MS-DOS.
Meanwhile, the company had continued to grow (from 1,200 employees in 1986 had more than 20,000 in 1996), and with the spread of Windows, Bill Gates began to exercise a virtual monopoly in the software world market, strengthened by its victory in the 1993 lawsuit against Apple, which had sued Microsoft, arguing that Windows was a plagiarism of their Macintosh GUI. Since 1993, the company embarked on the promotion of the media, especially in the field of education.
In addition to Windows, many programs and most basic and important practical applications produced by the company (the office suite Microsoft Office, for example) were always the most sold. There were many critics who decry its monopoly position, Microsoft and many times it was taken by the courts by companies and governments of competition, but nothing managed to stop its continued rise.
Businessman and philanthropist
Gates talent has been reflected in multiple software, whose use has spread worldwide as personal computers basic languages; but also in the success of a flexible and competitive company managed to unorthodox approaches and with special attention to the selection and motivation. Gates innovations have contributed to the rapid spread of the use of personal computing, producing a transcendental technical innovation in ways to produce, transmit and consume information. President Bush recognized the importance of the work of the Gates giving the National Medal of Technology in 1992.
Quick enrichment has been accompanied by a visionary and optimistic about a world transformed by the penetration of computers in all aspects of daily life future speech in response to the dream of introducing a personal computer in every home and on every job; This speech, which promotes a positive attitude towards the great social changes of our time, enjoy high ratings among young people around the world for the coming of the man who symbolizes material success based on the use of intelligence (the road book for the future was one of the most sold in 1995).
Critics of Bill Gates, who are also numerous, criticize, not without reason, his lack of creativity (certainly their talents and innovations are not comparable to Steve Jobs, and instead followed the paths opened by the founder of Apple ), and also criticize its trade policy, arguing that always based on absorption monopoly and competition or talent to hit book. Critics like to emphasize something completely real, even though it looks like an urban legend even MS-DOS is your job. Bill Gates bought for $ 50,000 to a call Seattle programmer Tim Paterson, renamed it and gave it to IBM.
Currently, Microsoft is still one of the most valuable companies in the world, despite having lost some battles, especially the Internet and mobile phone operating systems, which now takes Google (Sergey Brin and Larry Page) as valuable as another giant Microsoft. Front dynamism of the Internet era, in which emerging and rapidly become multimillion ideas like the social network Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, the company Gates seems to have been somewhat stagnant, although I did not question the strength of their position.
This is not solely responsible for Bill Gates, that already in 2000, gave the Executive Chairman of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, and became chief software architect to focus on the technological aspects. Bill Gates was married Melinda French in 1994, which would have three children. In 2000 he created, with his wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation charity dedicated to issues of health and education, whose splendid funding comes largely from his personal fortune. Not surprisingly, the founder of Microsoft is a regular annual ForbesMagazine List in 2014 had led to fifteen times as the richest man in the world.
In 2008, no doubt, Bill Gates left Microsoft to devote himself entirely to his work at the Foundation, which had received the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation in 2006. If it was once a controversial figure, this new phase as a philanthropist inspires admiration unanimously as was his company, his Foundation is the largest in the world in relation to the amount of their financial contributions to all kinds of support programs, research and development place.
Extracted from site: BiografĂas y Vidas
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