Bill Gates, born William Henry Gates has had a remarkable impact on the field of computing. He is an example of the result of discipline and burning desire to learn. Bill Gates followed his interests and used his incredible intelligence to found Microsoft, what is now the world’s largest computer software company. His parents noted that since his early days, Gates was competitive, inquisitive and extremely bright. Apparently “At Age eight, he even decided to read the entire World Book Encyclopedia, and made it as far as the letter P before stopping” (Sherman 7). Gates wrote his first computer program in 1968 when he was thirteen. This same year, he formed what he called the “Lakeside Programmers Group” with future Microsoft Founder Paul Allen
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Allen could no longer bear the stress of running a large corporation, but remains good friends with Gates until this day. Microsoft Windows was similar to the Apple Mac in many ways seeing that it had icons and a mouse. Gates was able to avoid a lawsuit with Apple by pointing out that Apple borrowed several ideas from Xerox (Dearlove 28). Also protecting him was the fact that in 1982, Jobs and Gates had agreed that Microsoft would write software for Apple products. By 1985 Microsoft earned over $140 million and was forced to relocate to Redmond, Washington. This is the current international location of Microsoft. By age thirty one, Gates was a billionaire (Sherman 29). He had accomplished nearly everything he had set out to do. Gates revolutionized computer software, built Microsoft from the ground up and “By 1987, it was the largest seller of computer software” (Sherman 31). He helped make personal computers available to general consumers instead of just hobbyists. The young man who once wrote his own software was now the head of a leading computer software …show more content…
Also, due to his competitive nature, he wanted to keep putting out new products to make sure that Microsoft was the best software company on the market. By 1989 right around the time Windows 3 was released, IBM had still not made Windows its main operating system, so IBM and Microsoft parted ways (Sherman 31). This split was finalized by 1992. Windows 3 was not extremely successful but the ad campaign brought a lot of much needed press to Microsoft as it was their biggest and most-expensive ad campaign to that date. This same year, Windows 3.1 was installed on 70 million computers (Sherman 33). Microsoft introduced “Microsoft Encarta, which first appeared in 1993, [and] was the first encyclopedia for the computer” (Sherman 33). Microsoft had grown so much from a small software company making software for the Altair. In 1994, “Microsoft Windows 3.1 was the operating system on 90 percent of the computers people bought” (Sherman 35). At this point, the growth of Microsoft seemed infinite. He released Windows 95 in 1995 and it sold over one million days in its first week of sale. Bill Gates seemingly had a software monopoly and was looking to expand to the internet which was emerging at the time. After developing Microsoft’s Internet Browser, Internet Explorer, Gates teamed up with NBC News to create MSNBC “a twenty-four hour news network on the internet” (Sherman 37). What
Allen could no longer bear the stress of running a large corporation, but remains good friends with Gates until this day. Microsoft Windows was similar to the Apple Mac in many ways seeing that it had icons and a mouse. Gates was able to avoid a lawsuit with Apple by pointing out that Apple borrowed several ideas from Xerox (Dearlove 28). Also protecting him was the fact that in 1982, Jobs and Gates had agreed that Microsoft would write software for Apple products. By 1985 Microsoft earned over $140 million and was forced to relocate to Redmond, Washington. This is the current international location of Microsoft. By age thirty one, Gates was a billionaire (Sherman 29). He had accomplished nearly everything he had set out to do. Gates revolutionized computer software, built Microsoft from the ground up and “By 1987, it was the largest seller of computer software” (Sherman 31). He helped make personal computers available to general consumers instead of just hobbyists. The young man who once wrote his own software was now the head of a leading computer software …show more content…
Also, due to his competitive nature, he wanted to keep putting out new products to make sure that Microsoft was the best software company on the market. By 1989 right around the time Windows 3 was released, IBM had still not made Windows its main operating system, so IBM and Microsoft parted ways (Sherman 31). This split was finalized by 1992. Windows 3 was not extremely successful but the ad campaign brought a lot of much needed press to Microsoft as it was their biggest and most-expensive ad campaign to that date. This same year, Windows 3.1 was installed on 70 million computers (Sherman 33). Microsoft introduced “Microsoft Encarta, which first appeared in 1993, [and] was the first encyclopedia for the computer” (Sherman 33). Microsoft had grown so much from a small software company making software for the Altair. In 1994, “Microsoft Windows 3.1 was the operating system on 90 percent of the computers people bought” (Sherman 35). At this point, the growth of Microsoft seemed infinite. He released Windows 95 in 1995 and it sold over one million days in its first week of sale. Bill Gates seemingly had a software monopoly and was looking to expand to the internet which was emerging at the time. After developing Microsoft’s Internet Browser, Internet Explorer, Gates teamed up with NBC News to create MSNBC “a twenty-four hour news network on the internet” (Sherman 37). What