Bill Gates

Timeline

1955	Born.
1973	Leaves Lakeside school to study law at Harvard.
1977	Drops out of Harvard to start up computer software company with Paul Allen.
1980	Agrees to license operating system to IBM.
1995	Windows 9X series introduced.
1995	Ordered by court to stop requiring PC makers to instal Internet Explorer.
1997	Microsoft ordered to supply Windows 95 without a browser.
1998	U.S. attorney general and 20 U.S. states launch antitrust lawsuits.
2000	Microsoft found guilty of anticompetitive behavior. Judge orders break-up of Microsoft.
2001	Break-up ruling set aside by appeals court. Launch of XP generation of OS and X-Box game console.
2002	Gates Foundation donates $300 million to world health research.
2003	Major focus on security of Windows operating system. Commitment to mobile computing.
2003	Microsoft passes $200 billion market capitalization.
2004	European Union instructs Microsoft to undergo series of anti-monopoly measures.
2005	Microsoft celebrates its 30th birthday.

Summary

Bill Gates’s contribution to the development of computer technology in the late 20th century is beyond dispute. His commercial instincts are legendary. He began young. At the age of 13 he was already plotting his business future, forming the Lakeside Programmers Group with some school friends. Its goal was to seek commercial opportunities for their computer programming skills. His early programming brilliance, his alliance with Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, and his departure from Harvard to start Microsoft are well known. The company’s future was assured when it secured a deal to license an operating system—MS-DOS—to IBM. Gates never looked back.

Microsoft is one of the most spectacularly successful companies the world has ever seen, with Gates overseeing the launch of successive versions of Windows to thwart the ambitions of Apple and IBM and maintain Microsoft’s hegemony. As the Internet developed into the next big thing, he beat off Netscape in the browser wars. But perhaps his biggest challenge to date has come from the attentions of the Department of Justice and its antitrust lawyers. Despite protracted and bitter litigation, Gates has so far managed to keep Microsoft intact, and enabled it to hold on to its dominant position.