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Bill Gates

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For other people named Bill Gates, see Bill Gates (disambiguation).

Bill Gates

Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 2007

October 28, 1955 (age 55)


Born
Seattle, Washington, USA

Residence Medina, WA

Nationality American

Alma mater Harvard University (dropped out in 1975)

Occupation Chairman of Microsoft (non-executive)


Chairman of board of Corbis
Co-Chair of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Director of Berkshire Hathaway
CEO of Cascade Investment

Net worth US$54 billion (2010)[1]

Spouse Melinda Gates (1994–present)

Children 3

William H. Gates, Sr.


Parents
Mary Maxwell Gates

Signature

Website

Bill Gates

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955)[2] is an American business magnate,
philanthropist, author and chairman[3] of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul
Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people[4] and was the wealthiest
overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third.[5] During his career at
Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest
individual shareholder with more than 8 percent of the common stock.[6] He has also authored or
co-authored several books.

Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Although he
is admired by many, a number of industry insiders criticize his business tactics, which they
consider anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts.[7][8] In
the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating
large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs
through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.

Bill Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000. He remained as
chairman and created the position of chief software architect. In June 2006, Gates announced that
he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work and full-time work
at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie, chief
software architect and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates' last full-time day
at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as non-executive chairman.

Contents
[hide]

 1 Early life
 2 Microsoft
o 2.1 BASIC
o 2.2 IBM partnership
o 2.3 Windows
o 2.4 Management style
o 2.5 Antitrust litigation
o 2.6 Appearance in ads
 3 Post-Microsoft
 4 Personal life
o 4.1 Philanthropy
o 4.2 Recognition
o 4.3 Investments
 5 Bibliography
 6 Filmography
 7 References
 8 See also
o 8.1 Books
 9 Further reading
 10 External links

Early life
Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates, of
English, German, and Scottish-Irish descent.[9][10] His family was upper middle class; his father
was a prominent lawyer, his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate
BancSystem and the United Way, and her father, J. W. Maxwell, was a national bank president.
Gates has one elder sister, Kristi (Kristianne), and one younger sister, Libby. He was the fourth
of his name in his family, but was known as William Gates III or "Trey" because his father had
dropped his own "III" suffix.[11] Early on in his life, Gates' parents had a law career in mind for
him.[12]

At 13 he enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school.[13] When he was in the
eighth grade, the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage
sale to buy an ASR-33 teletype terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric
(GE) computer for the school's students.[14] Gates took an interest in programming the GE system
in BASIC and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer
program on this machine: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games
against the computer. Gates was fascinated by the machine and how it would always execute
software code perfectly. When he reflected back on that moment, he commented on it and said,
"There was just something neat about the machine."[15] After the Mothers Club donation was
exhausted, he and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers.
One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC), which
banned four Lakeside students—Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans—for the
summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer
time.[16]

At the end of the ban, the four students offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for
computer time. Rather than use the system via teletype, Gates went to CCC's offices and studied
source code for various programs that ran on the system, including programs in FORTRAN,
LISP, and machine language. The arrangement with CCC continued until 1970, when the
company went out of business. The following year, Information Sciences, Inc. hired the four
Lakeside students to write a payroll program in COBOL, providing them computer time and
royalties. After his administrators became aware of his programming abilities, Gates wrote the
school's computer program to schedule students in classes. He modified the code so that he was
placed in classes with mostly female students. He later stated that "it was hard to tear myself
away from a machine at which I could so unambiguously demonstrate success."[15] At age 17,
Gates formed a venture with Allen, called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on the
Intel 8008 processor.[17] In early 1973, Bill Gates served as a congressional page in the U.S.
House of Representatives.[18]

Bill Gates' mugshot from a traffic violation in 1977

Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT[19] and
enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973.[20] While at Harvard, he met Steve Ballmer,
who later succeeded Gates as CEO of Microsoft. In his sophomore year, Gates devised an
algorithm for pancake sorting as a solution to one of a series of unsolved problems,[21] presented
in a combinatorics class by Harry Lewis, one of his professors. Gates' solution, which was later
formalized in a published paper in collaboration with Harvard computer scientist Christos
Papadimitriou,[22] held the record as the fastest version for over thirty years;[21][23] its successor is
faster by only one percent[21] Gates did not have a definite study plan while a student at
Harvard[24] and spent a lot of time using the school's computers. He remained in contact with Paul
Allen, joining him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974.[25] The following year saw the
release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw this as
the opportunity to start their own computer software company.[26] He had talked this decision
over with his parents, who were supportive of him after seeing how much Gates wanted to start a
company.[24]

Microsoft
Main articles: History of Microsoft and Microsoft

BASIC

MITS Altair 8800 Computer with 8-inch (200 mm) floppy disk system

After reading the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800,
Gates contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), the creators of the new
microcomputer, to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the
platform.[27] In reality, Gates and Allen did not have an Altair and had not written code for it;
they merely wanted to gauge MITS's interest. MITS president Ed Roberts agreed to meet them
for a demo, and over the course of a few weeks they developed an Altair emulator that ran on a
minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter. The demonstration, held at MITS's offices in
Albuquerque, was a success and resulted in a deal with MITS to distribute the interpreter as
Altair BASIC. Paul Allen was hired into MITS,[28] and Gates took a leave of absence from
Harvard to work with Allen at MITS in Albuquerque in November 1975. They named their
partnership "Micro-Soft" and had their first office located in Albuquerque.[28] Within a year, the
hyphen was dropped, and on November 26, 1976, the trade name "Microsoft" was registered
with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.[28] Gates never returned to Harvard
to complete his studies.

Microsoft's BASIC was popular with computer hobbyists, but Gates discovered that a pre-market
copy had leaked into the community and was being widely copied and distributed. In February
1976, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter saying that MITS could
not continue to produce, distribute, and maintain high-quality software without payment.[29] This
letter was unpopular with many computer hobbyists, but Gates persisted in his belief that
software developers should be able to demand payment. Microsoft became independent of MITS
in late 1976, and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems.[28]
The company moved from Albuquerque to its new home in Bellevue, Washington on January 1,
1979.[27]

During Microsoft's early years, all employees had broad responsibility for the company's
business. Gates oversaw the business details, but continued to write code as well. In the first five
years, he personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped, and often rewrote parts of
it as he saw fit.[30]

IBM partnership

In 1980, IBM approached Microsoft to write the BASIC interpreter for its upcoming personal
computer, the IBM PC. When IBM's representatives mentioned that they needed an operating
system, Gates referred them to Digital Research (DRI), makers of the widely used CP/M
operating system.[31] IBM's discussions with Digital Research went poorly, and they did not reach
a licensing agreement. IBM representative Jack Sams mentioned the licensing difficulties during
a subsequent meeting with Gates and told him to get an acceptable operating system. A few
weeks later Gates proposed using 86-DOS (QDOS), an operating system similar to CP/M that
Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products (SCP) had made for hardware similar to the PC.
Microsoft made a deal with SCP to become the exclusive licensing agent, and later the full
owner, of 86-DOS. After adapting the operating system for the PC, Microsoft delivered it to IBM
as PC-DOS in exchange for a one-time fee of $50,000. Gates did not offer to transfer the
copyright on the operating system, because he believed that other hardware vendors would clone
IBM's system.[32] They did, and the sales of MS-DOS made Microsoft a major player in the
industry.[33]

Gates oversaw Microsoft's company restructuring on June 25, 1981, which re-incorporated the
company in Washington state and made Gates President of Microsoft and the Chairman of the
Board.[27]

Windows

Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985, and in
August, the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2.
Although the two companies successfully developed the first version of the new system,
mounting creative differences undermined the partnership. Gates distributed an internal memo on
May 16, 1991, announcing that the OS/2 partnership was over and Microsoft would shift its
efforts to the Windows NT kernel development.[34]

Management style

From Microsoft's founding in 1975 until 2006, Gates had primary responsibility for the
company's product strategy. He aggressively broadened the company's range of products, and
wherever Microsoft achieved a dominant position he vigorously defended it.

As an executive, Gates met regularly with Microsoft's senior managers and program managers.
Firsthand accounts of these meetings describe him as verbally combative, berating managers for
perceived holes in their business strategies or proposals that placed the company's long-term
interests at risk.[35][36] He often interrupted presentations with such comments as, "That's the
stupidest thing I've ever heard!"[37] and, "Why don't you just give up your options and join the
Peace Corps?"[38] The target of his outburst then had to defend the proposal in detail until,
hopefully, Gates was fully convinced.[37] When subordinates appeared to be procrastinating, he
was known to remark sarcastically, "I'll do it over the weekend."[3][39][40]

Gates's role at Microsoft for most of its history was primarily a management and executive role.
However, he was an active software developer in the early years, particularly on the company's
programming language products. He has not officially been on a development team since
working on the TRS-80 Model 100 line, but wrote code as late as 1989 that shipped in the
company's products.[39] On June 15, 2006, Gates announced that he would transition out of his
day-to-day role over the next two years to dedicate more time to philanthropy. He divided his
responsibilities between two successors, placing Ray Ozzie in charge of day-to-day management
and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy.[41]

Antitrust litigation

Further information: United States Microsoft antitrust case and European Union Microsoft


competition case

Bill Gates giving his deposition at Microsoft on August 27, 1998

Many decisions that led to antitrust litigation over Microsoft's business practices have had Gates'
approval. In the 1998 United States v. Microsoft case, Gates gave deposition testimony that
several journalists characterized as evasive. He argued with examiner David Boies over the
contextual meaning of words like "compete", "concerned" and "we".[42] BusinessWeek reported:

Early rounds of his deposition show him offering obfuscatory answers and saying 'I don't recall,'
so many times that even the presiding judge had to chuckle. Worse, many of the technology
chief's denials and pleas of ignorance were directly refuted by prosecutors with snippets of e-
mail Gates both sent and received.[43]

Gates later said that he had simply resisted attempts by Boies to mischaracterize his words and
actions. As to his demeanor during the deposition, he said, "Did I fence with Boies? ... I plead
guilty. Whatever that penalty is should be levied against me: rudeness to Boies in the first
degree."[44] Despite Gates's denials, the judge ruled that Microsoft had committed monopolization
and tying, and blocking competition, both in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.[44]

Appearance in ads

Gates appeared in a series of ads to promote Microsoft in 2008. The first commercial, co-starring
Jerry Seinfeld, is a 90-second talk between strangers as Seinfeld walks up on a discount shoe
store (Shoe Circus) in a mall and notices Gates buying shoes inside. The salesman is trying to
sell Mr. Gates shoes that are a size too big. As Gates is buying the shoes he holds up his discount
card, which uses a slightly altered version of his own mugshot of his arrest in New Mexico in
1977 for a traffic violation.[45] As they are walking out of the mall, Seinfeld asks Gates if he has
melded his mind to other developers, after getting a yes, he then asks if they are working on a
way to make computers edible, again getting a yes. Some say that this is an homage to Seinfeld's
own show about "nothing" (Seinfeld).[46] In a second commercial in the series, Gates and Seinfeld
are at the home of an average family trying to fit in with normal people.

Post-Microsoft
Since leaving Microsoft, Gates continues his philanthropy and, among other projects, purchased
the videos rights to the Messenger Lectures series titled The Character of Physical Law, given at
Cornell University by Richard Feynman in 1964 and recorded by the BBC. The videos are
available online to the public at Microsoft's Project Tuva.[47][48]

In April 2010, Gates was invited to visit and speak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
where he asked the students to take on the hard problems of the world in their futures.[49][50]

Personal life

Bill and Melinda Gates, June 2009.

Gates married Melinda French from Dallas, Texas on January 1, 1994. They have three children:
daughters Jennifer Katharine Gates (born 1996) and Phoebe Adele Gates (born 2002), and son
Rory John Gates (born 1999). The Gates' home is an earth-sheltered house in the side of a hill
overlooking Lake Washington in Medina. According to King County public records, as of 2006
the total assessed value of the property (land and house) is $125 million, and the annual property
tax is $991,000.
His 66,000 sq ft (6,100 m2) estate has a 60-foot (18 m) swimming pool with an underwater music
system, as well as a 2,500 sq ft (230 m2) gym and a 1,000 sq ft (93 m2) dining room.[51]

Also among Gates's private acquisitions is the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by
Leonardo da Vinci, which Gates bought for $30.8 million at an auction in 1994.[52] Gates is also
known as an avid reader, and the ceiling of his large home library is engraved with a quotation
from The Great Gatsby.[53] He also enjoys playing bridge, tennis, and golf.[54][55]

Gates was number one on the "Forbes 400" list from 1993 through to 2007 and number one on
Forbes list of "The World's Richest People" from 1995 to 2007 and 2009. In 1999, Gates's
wealth briefly surpassed $101 billion, causing the media to call him a "centibillionaire".[56] Since
2000, the nominal value of his Microsoft holdings has declined due to a fall in Microsoft's stock
price after the dot-com bubble burst and the multi-billion dollar donations he has made to his
charitable foundations. In a May 2006 interview, Gates commented that he wished that he were
not the richest man in the world because he disliked the attention it brought.[57] Gates has several
investments outside Microsoft, which in 2006 paid him a salary of $616,667, and $350,000
bonus totalling $966,667.[58] He founded Corbis, a digital imaging company, in 1989. In 2004 he
became a director of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company headed by long-time friend
Warren Buffett.[59] In March 2010 Bill Gates was bumped down to the 2nd wealthiest man
behind Carlos Slim.

Philanthropy

Gates (second from right) with Bono, Queen Rania of Jordan, Former British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown, President Yar Adua of Nigeria and other participants in a 'Call to Action on the
Millennium Development Goals' during the Annual Meeting 2008 of the World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Further information: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Gates began to realize the expectations others had of him when public opinion mounted that he
could give more of his wealth to charity. Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John
D. Rockefeller and in 1994 sold some of his Microsoft stock to create the William H. Gates
Foundation. In 2000, Gates and his wife combined three family foundations into one to create the
charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the largest transparently operated
charitable foundation in the world.[60] The foundation is set up to allow benefactors access to how
its money is being spent, unlike other major charitable organizations such as the Wellcome Trust.
[61][62]
The generosity and extensive philanthropy of David Rockefeller has been credited as a
major influence. Gates and his father have met with Rockefeller several times and have modeled
their giving in part on the Rockefeller family's philanthropic focus, namely those global
problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations.[63] As of 2007, Bill and
Melinda Gates were the second most generous philanthropists in America, having given over $28
billion to charity.[64]

The foundation has also received criticism because it invests the assets that it has not yet
distributed with the exclusive goal of maximizing the return on investment. As a result, its
investments include companies that have been criticized for worsening poverty in the same
developing countries where the Foundation is attempting to relieve poverty. These include
companies that pollute heavily and pharmaceutical companies that do not sell into the developing
world.[65] In response to press criticism, the foundation announced in 2007 a review of its
investments to assess social responsibility.[66] It subsequently cancelled the review and stood by
its policy of investing for maximum return, while using voting rights to influence company
practices.[67] Gates has made The Giving Pledge to donate over half of his wealth to charity.[68]

Recognition

In 1987 Gates was officially declared a billionaire in the pages of Forbes' 400 Richest People in
America issue, just days before his 32nd birthday. As the world's youngest self-made billionaire,
he was worth $1.25 billion, over $900 million more than he'd been worth the year before, when
he'd debuted on the list.[69]

Time magazine named Gates one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th century, as
well as one of the 100 most influential people of 2004, 2005, and 2006. Time also collectively
named Gates, his wife Melinda and U2's lead singer Bono as the 2005 Persons of the Year for
their humanitarian efforts.[70] In 2006, he was voted eighth in the list of "Heroes of our time".[71]
Gates was listed in the Sunday Times power list in 1999, named CEO of the year by Chief
Executive Officers magazine in 1994, ranked number one in the "Top 50 Cyber Elite" by Time in
1998, ranked number two in the Upside Elite 100 in 1999 and was included in The Guardian as
one of the "Top 100 influential people in media" in 2001.[72]

In 1994, he was honoured as the twentieth Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society.
Gates has received honorary doctorates from Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The
Netherlands, in 2000;[73] the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, in 2002;
Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, in 2005; Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in April 2007;
[74]
Harvard University in June 2007;[75] the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, in January 2008,[76]
and Cambridge University in June 2009.[77] He was also made an honorary trustee of Peking
University in 2007.[78] Gates was also made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the
British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005,[79] in addition to having entomologists
name the Bill Gates flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his honor.[80]

In November 2006, he and his wife were awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle for their
philanthropic work around the world in the areas of health and education, particularly in Mexico,
and specifically in the program "Un país de lectores".[81] In October 2009, it was announced that
Gates will be awarded the 2010 Bower Award for Business Leadership of The Franklin Institute
for his achievements in business and for his philanthropic work. In 2010 he was honored with the
Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America, its highest award for adults, for his service
to youth.[82]

Investments

 Cascade Investments LLC, a private investment and holding company, incorporated in


United States, is controlled by Bill Gates, and is headquartered in the city of Kirkland,
WA.
 bgC3, a new think-tank company founded by Bill Gates.
 Corbis, a digital image licensing and rights services company.
 TerraPower, a nuclear reactor design company.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates listens during a press conference to launch a plan aimed at saving 10 million mothers and
newborns in the poorest countries

Cetty Images/Rick Gershon

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History Bill Gates Foundation Life Biography Microsoft Windows 7 Inventors

Bill Gates came from a family of entrepreneurship and high-spirited liveliness. William Henry Gates III
was born in Seattle, Washington on October 28th, 1955. His father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle
attorney. His late mother, Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent, and
chairwoman of United Way International.
Bill Gates - Early Life

He had an early interest in software and began programming computers at the age of thirteen. In
1973, Bill Gates became a student at Harvard University, where he meet Steve Ballmer (now
Microsoft's chief executive officer). While still a Harvard undergraduate, Bill Gates wrote a version of
the programming language BASIC for the MITS Altair microcomputer.

Did you know that as young teenagers Bill Gates and Paul Allen ran a small company called Traf-O-
Data and sold a computer to the city of Seattle that could count city traffic?

Bill Gates & Microsoft

In 1975, before graduation Gates left Harvard to form Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen.
The pair planned to develop software for the newly emerging personal computer market.

Bill Gate's company Microsoft became famous for their computer operating systems and killer business
deals. For example, Bill Gates talked IBM into letting Microsoft retain the licensing rights to MS-DOS
an operating system, that IBM needed for their new personal computer. Gates proceeded to make a
fortune from the licensing of MS-DOS.

On November 10, 1983, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Microsoft Corporation formally announced
Microsoft Windows, a next-generation operating system.

On January 1, 1994, Bill Gates married Melinda French Gates. They have three children.

Bill Gates Philanthropist

Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, have endowed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with more than
$28.8 billion (as of January 2005) to support philanthropic initiatives in the areas of global health and
learning.

 MS DOS The Operating System History

From a Quick and Dirty Operating System a giant walks (ms-dos), in 1980, IBM first approached
Bill Gates and Microsoft, to discuss the state of home computers and Microsoft products.

 Windows 1.0 To Windows Beyond 2000

Windows is the graphical user interface for IBM and IBM compatible machines, this article discusses
the origins of Windows and where Windows is heading.

 Top Books on Bill Gates

Authorized and unauthorized books on Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman and the youngest self-made
billionaire in history.
More on Bill Gates

Books on Bill Gates

Feature Stories on Microsoft

MS DOS The Operating System History


Windows 1.0 To Windows Beyond 2000

Suggested Reading

History of Computers
IBM PC - History
The History of Software Programming

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http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventors/a/Bill_Gates.htm

Bill Gates

Bill Gates married Melinda French of Dallas, Texas on January 1st, 94. Melinda. They have
three children, Jennifer Katharine Gates (1996), Rory John Gates (1999) and Phoebe Adele
Gates (2002). Bill Gates' house is one of the most expensive houses in the world, and is a
modern 21st century earth sheltered home in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in
Medina, Washington. According to King County public records, in 2006, the total assessed value
of the property (land and house) is US$125 million, and the annual property tax is US$1 million.
Also among Gates' private acquisitions are the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by
Leonardo da Vinci which Gates bought for USA$30.8 million at an auction in 1994, and a rare
Gutenberg Bible.

William (Bill) H. Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corporation, the worldwide leader in software,
services and solutions helping people and businesses realize their full potential. Microsoft had
revenues of US$39.79 billion for the fiscal year ending June 2005, and employs 61,000 people in
102 nations and regions.

On the June 15th 2006, Microsoft announced effective July 2008 Gates will transition out of a
day to day role in the company to spend more time on global health and education work at the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He will keep the role of chairman and senior technical adviser
and has pledged to maintain his position as Microsoft's biggest shareholder

Gates has received two honorary doctorates, from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm,
Sweden in 2002 and Waseda University in 2005. Gates was also given an honorary KBE
(Knighthood) from the UK in 2005, in addition to having entomologists name the Bill Gates
flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his honor.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has stated that Gates is probably the most "spammed" person in
the world, receiving as many as 4,000,000 e-mails a day in 2004, most of which were junk. Gates
has almost an entire department devoted to filtering out junk emails. In an article, Gates himself
has said that most of this junk mail "offers to help get out of debt or get rich quick", which
"would be funny if it weren't so irritating"

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is the co-founder, chairman, former
chief software architect, and former CEO of Microsoft Corporation. He is also the founder of
Corbis, a digital image archiving company. The Forbes international rich list ranked him the
world's richest person for the last 12 years . In 1999, Gates' wealth briefly surpassed USA$100
billion making him America's first centibillionaire. According to the Forbes 2004 magazine, Bill
Gates's net worth was USA$46.6 billion. When family wealth is considered, his family ranks
second behind the Walton family.
Bill Gates was born in Seattle, Washington state North West USA, to William H. Gates, Sr. and
Mary Maxwell Gates. Born on Oct. 28, 1955, Gates grew up in Seattle with his two sisters older
sister, Kristi (Kristianne), and one younger sister, Libby. Their father, William H. Gates II, is a
Seattle attorney. Their late mother, Mary Gates, was a school teacher, University of Washington
regent, and chairwoman of United Way International.

Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School. There, he discovered
his interest in software and began programming computers at age 13.

Gates excelled in elementary school, particularly in maths and sciences. Bill Gates went to
Lakeside School, Seattle's exclusive preparatory school where tuition in 1967 was USA$5,000
(Harvard tuition that year was USA$1,760). Lakeside rented time on a DEC PDP-10, which
Gates was to use to pursue an interest in computers, a rare opportunity at the time. Gates was a
member of the Boy Scouts of America and attained the rank of Life Scout. While in high school,
he and Paul Allen founded Traf O Data, a company which selling traffic flow data systems to
state governments. He also helped to create a payroll system in COBOL, for a company in
Portland, Oregon.

He was able to enroll at Harvard University in the fall of 73, pursuing a Bachelors of Science in
Computer Science, where he met his future business partner, Steve Ballmer. During his second
year at Harvard, Gates (along with Paul Allen and Monte Davidoff) co wrote Altair BASIC for
the Altair 8800. Gates dropped out of Harvard during his third year to pursue a career in software
development. On December 13, 77, Gates was briefly jailed in Albuquerque for racing his
Porsche 911 in the New Mexico desert.

After reading the January 75 issue of Popular Electronics demonstrated the Altair 8800, Gates
called MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems), the creators of the new
microcomputer, to inform them he and others developed a version of the programming language
BASIC for the platform. This was untrue, as Gates and Allen had never used an Altair previously
nor developed code for it. Within a period of eight weeks they developed an Altair emulator
running on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter. Allen and Gates flew to MITS to
unveil the new BASIC system. The demonstration was a success and resulted in a deal with
MITS to buy the rights to Allen and Gates's BASIC for the Altair platform. It was at this point
that Gates left Harvard to found Micro-Soft, which later became Microsoft Corporation, with
Allen.

Since Microsoft's founding and as of 2006, Gates has had primary responsibility for Microsoft's
product strategy. He has broadened the company's range of products, and wherever Microsoft
has achieved a dominant position he vigorously defended it. Many decisions have led to antitrust
litigation over Microsoft's business practices have had Gates' approval. In the 1998 USA v.
Microsoft case, Gates gave deposition testimony several journalists characterized as evasive. He
argued over definitions of words such as "compete", "concerned", "ask", and "we."
BusinessWeek reported, "early rounds of his deposition show him offering obfuscatory answers
and saying 'I don't recall' so many times even the presiding judge had to chuckle. Worse, many of
the technology chief's denials and pleas of ignorance were directly refuted by prosecutors with
snippets of e-mail Gates both sent and received."
At Live 8, Gates appeared and made a speech before introducing Dido. Gates also made an
appearance on the 200th episode of USA classic comedy Frasier, where he played himself.

Gates recently appeared opposite Jon Heder in a skit shown at a conference presenting Windows
Vista. The skit is just 5 minutes of Napoleon Dynamite if he was head of Microsoft.

In addition to his love of computers and software, Gates founded Corbis, which is developing
one of the world's largest resources of visual information - a comprehensive digital archive of art
& photography from public and private collections around the globe. He is also a member of the
board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which invests in companies engaged in diverse
business activities.

Bill Gates, the world's richest man and boss of software giant Microsoft, has admitted that his
computer crashes and he's mostly looking forward to getting books for Christmas.
He also revealed that he thinks Microsoft is a great place to work - and he's fed up with his long-
running battle with the US government.

Other interests listed on his official website are reading, playing golf and bridge.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org

Bill and Melinda Gates believe every life has equal value. In 2000, they created the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation to help reduce inequities in the USA and around the world.

HQ in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by co-chairs Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and
William H. Gates Sr., and by CEO Patty Stonesifer.

In 2000, Gates founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a charitable organization, with his
wife. The foundation's grants have provided funds for college scholarships for under-represented
minorities, AIDS prevention, diseases prevalent in third world countries, and other causes. In
2000, the Gates Foundation endowed the University of Cambridge with USA$210 million for a
Gates Cambridge Scholarships. The Foundation pledged over USA$7 billion to its various
causes, including USA$1 billion to the United Negro College Fund; and as of 2005, had an
estimated endowment of USA$29.0 billion. He has spent about a third of his lifetime income on
charity. However, some suggest that these donations have self-serving motives.

Over the past decade Mr Gates has made a name as one of the world's top philanthropists, with
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledging $7bn to good causes. Back in July 2004,
Microsoft decided to return $75bn (£40.5bn) in cash to the software giant's shareholders.
Mr Gates, Microsoft's billionaire co-founder and the company's biggest shareholder, said he
intended to give his estimated $3bn share of the payout to his charitable foundation. Set up in
2000 by Mr Gates and his wife Melinda from the merger of two family charitable trusts, the
foundation has a $27bn endowment and is dedicated to promoting greater equality in global
health and learning.
In 2005 the foundation run by Microsoft magnate Bill Gates has announced it is dedicating
$750m (£400m) to a worldwide infant vaccination programme.

In 2003 the world's richest man Bill Gates donated $168m to fund research into malaria, the
mosquito borne disease which kills around one million people a year.

http://www.microsoft.com/

Microsoft Corporation is an international computer technology corporation with 2005 global


annual sales of US$42.64 billion and 63,564 employees in 102 nations and regions developing,
manufacturing, licensing, and supporting a wide range of software products for computing. HQ
in Redmond, Washington state, USA, its most popular products are the Microsoft Windows
operating system and Microsoft Office suite of productivity software, each of which has
achieved near ubiquity in the desktop computer market. Microsoft possesses footholds in other
markets, with assets such as the MSNBC cable television network, the MSN Internet portal, and
the Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopedia. The company also markets both computer
hardware products such as the Microsoft mouse as well as home entertainment products such as
the Xbox, Xbox 360 and MSN TV.

The Republic of Ireland became home to Microsoft's first international production facility in
1985, and on November 20 Microsoft released its first retail version of Microsoft Windows,
originally a graphical extension for its MS-DOS operating system.

In the mid 90s, Microsoft began to expand its product line into computer networking and the
World Wide Web. On August 24, 1995, it launched a major online service, MSN (Microsoft
Network), as a direct competitor to AOL. MSN became an umbrella service for Microsoft's
online services, using Microsoft Passport as a universal login system for all of its websites.

In 2005, Microsoft received a 100% rating in the Corporate Equality Index from the Human
Rights Campaign relating to its policies concerning LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transsexual) employees.

http://www.lonympics.co.uk/new/Bill_Gates.htm

Bill Gates' Latest Challenge: Polio


The billionaire philanthropist is brokering deals with
drugmakers to make cheaper vaccines available
By Jason Gale

BW Magazine
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Bill Gate's eureka moment came in June 2009 in an underground conference room at the World
Health Organization's headquarters in Geneva. After a decade of giving away millions to
eradicate polio, the billionaire philanthropist was being briefed on hours-old data showing how
two doses of a new polio vaccine protected 37 percent more children than conventional ones.

The immunization, which protects against multiple strains, promised to speed the effort to wipe
out the crippling killer that remains a scourge in developing nations. Several months later, Gates
pledged an additional $285 million toward eradication of the malady.
Fast forward to early November, when Gates again stepped into the fight against polio. This time
his charitable foundation helped broker a deal that will allow the UN to buy those new vaccines
more cheaply. The Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder met with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Chief
Executive Officer Andrew Witty in New York this month as part of talks that resulted in five
international suppliers—GlaxoSmithKline, Indonesia's Bio Farma, Sanofi-Aventis (SNY),
Novartis (NVS), and New Delhi-based Panacea Biotec—agreeing to steep cuts in polio vaccine
prices.

Under the deal the UN Children's Fund, known as Unicef, will pay a weighted-average price of
about 13 cents apiece for the 2.4 billion doses it plans to buy in 2011 and 2012, down from 14.5
cents. The price reduction reverses a decade-long trend of increases, according to Unicef. "The
foundation can sometimes be a catalyst to bring parties to the table, and we saw that with Unicef
and the manufacturers," Gates said in an e-mail. "The outcome was greater certainty and lower
costs."

About 40 percent of Unicef's order will be for the new vaccine, which is bivalent, meaning it
works against two types of polio. "We were all enthusiastic about the promise of bivalent to help
us reach eradication, and to reach it sooner," Gates said in the e-mail. "We knew it had a good
chance at eliminating the ping-pong effect we were seeing in taking on the different types of
polio outbreaks."

The $60 million saved by the price-cuts will allow Unicef to buy up to an additional 400 million
doses, says Bruce Aylward, head of WHO's polio program. "We have a real opportunity to give
it our best shot to finish this with the new vaccines," he says. "The manufacturers are playing
ball."

Polio, an acute viral disease, paralyzed millions of people worldwide in the 20th century. At the
height of the most extensive polio outbreak ever in 1952, almost 60,000 cases with over 3,000
deaths reported in the U.S. alone. Polio was eliminated from the Western hemisphere after
vaccines became widely available in the mid-1950s. Yet before the Global Polio Eradication
Initiative began in 1988, the disease still paralyzed at least 350,000 children in more than 125
countries annually. Although outbreaks have been dropping fast in recent years, the malady still
struck in 23 countries last year. India had the most cases.

Progress is being made: 85 vaccination campaigns in 2009 across India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and
Afghanistan slashed the number of cases in those nations to 180 so far this year, from 1,051 the
same time last year. Behind the success: the bivalent vaccine, first used commercially last
December, in Afghanistan. Two doses of the new medicine, given as drops on the tongue, gave
86 percent of children protective antibodies against the most virulent kind of polio (no vaccine is
100 percent effective), according to a study in India. In comparison, a double dose of
conventional vaccine protected 63 percent of kids from Type 1 polio.

The Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided more than $1 billion for polio
programs during the past decade, making it the biggest donor to a global three-year, $2.6 billion
plan to root out the last vestiges of the disease by 2013. It would be the first viral illness in
humans to be declared eradicated since smallpox in 1980. Nonetheless, the program faces an
$810 million funding gap. "It's going to be expensive to travel the last mile toward eradication,"
said Jeff Raikes, the foundation's CEO, in September. "But it will be exponentially more
expensive if we don't reach the end of the road, because we'd have to keep on treating thousands
of children paralyzed each year indefinitely."

The bottom line: Polio continues to plague the developing world. Microsoft co-founder Bill
Gates is spending heavily to eradicate the disease

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_48/b4205032079305.htm

Profile: Bill Gates

Gates had sold his first computer


program by the age of 17
Bill Gates has created the world's largest company, he
is the world's richest man and he has become the
biggest charitable giver in history.

He may be a college drop-out and "computer geek" but rivals


have often underestimated his abilities in the cut throat world
of business.

Despite the wealth and ruthless domination of the global


computer industry, Gates maintains it is the programming
itself which is his abiding passion.

He stood down as chief executive of Microsoft in 2000, to


focus on software development and the new challenges of
the mobile internet age.

The one-time high school computer enthusiast - whose worth


passed the $100bn mark in 1999 - said he wanted to
immerse himself again in the work he loves most.

Early fascination

Gates has come to be known for his aggressive business


tactics and confrontational style of management.
He, and his company, have attracted a vast army of critics
and enemies in recent years as their domination of the IT
world has grown.

He was born on 28 October, 1955, growing up with two


sisters in Seattle. Their father, William H. Gates II, is a
Seattle attorney, and their late mother, Mary Gates, was a
schoolteacher.

Gates began computing as a 13-year-old at the city's


Lakeside school.

By the age of 17, he had sold his first program - a


timetabling system for the school, earning him $4,200.

It was at Lakeside that he met fellow student Paul Allen, who


shared his fascination with computers.

During Gates' stint at Harvard, the two teamed up to write


the first computer language program written for a personal
computer.

The PC's maker, MITS, liked their work and the two friends
established Microsoft in 1975, so-called because it provided
microcomputer software.

Self-made billionaire

A year later, Gates dropped out of Harvard, once it became


clear that the possibilities for Microsoft were bright.

The big break came in 1980 when an agreement was signed


to provide the operating system that became known as MS-
DOS, for IBM's new personal computer.

In a contractual masterstroke, Microsoft was allowed to


licence the operating system to other manufacturers,
spawning an industry of "IBM-compatible" personal
computers which depended on Microsoft's operating system.

That fuelled further growth, prompting the company to float


in 1986, raising $61m.

Now a multi-millionaire, Allen had already stepped back from


the frontline. But Gates continued to play the key role in the
company's growth, with his vision for networked computers
proving central to Microsoft's success.

However, his judgement has not always appeared flawless.


While sales and profits rocketed in the early 1990s, he was
seen to have misjudged on a grand scale the possibilities and
growth of the internet.

Outside of Microsoft he also has interests in biotech


companies, sitting on the board of the Icos Corporation and
has a stake in Darwin Molecular, a subsidiary of British-based
Chiroscience.

Family man

He founded Corbis Corporation, which is developing a digital


archive of art and photography from public and private
collections around the globe.

His books, The Road Ahead and Business @ the Speed of


Thought have both hit the best seller lists.

Gates married Melinda on New Year's Day 1994.Together


they have three children - Jennifer Katharine, born in 1996,
Rory John, born in 1999, and Phoebe Adele, born in 2002

He met his wife in 1987 at a Microsoft press event in


Manhattan. She was working for the company and later
became one of the executives in charge of interactive
content.

Other interests listed on his official website are reading and


playing golf and bridge.

Gates and Melinda have been giving increasing amounts of


money to charity, with his father running a foundation.

It has been endowed with billions to support initiatives in the


areas of global health and education.

It is the world's second richest philanthropic organisation,


and within shouting distance of the world number one, The
Wellcome Trust in the UK.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3428721.stm

Bill Gates and Microsoft


28 October 1955
Bill Gates is born to a wealthy Seattle family. He is the second child of William H Gates II,
an attorney, and Mary Gates, a leading charity volunteer.

1968
Gates starts at Lakeside, an exclusive private school. He is two years junior to fellow
student Paul Allen.

The Lakeside Mothers' Club buys the school a Teletype machine - a special typewriter that
can send electronic messages down a phone line to a primitive computer at the local
university.

Gates and Allen develop a passion for the machine and frequently sneak into the school at
night to write programmes on it.

1972
Gates uses the Teletype machine to devise the Lakeside
School timetable. It is a complicated job but Gates
ensures the girls he finds most attractive are scheduled to
be in his classes.

Return to top

DROPPING OUT

1973
Gates graduates from Lakeside and starts at Harvard. His
primary subject is "Pre-Law" but he also takes classes in
Mathematics and Economics. He becomes friends with a
student living along the hall called Steve Ballmer.

December 1974
An article appears in Popular Electronics magazine about The 1970s saw a leap forward in
an exciting new "personal computer", the Altair 8800, computing

which has been developed by a company called MITS.

It uses the Intel 8080 microprocessor, making it the world's first mass-produced
microcomputer. MITS is inviting readers to develop a programming language for it.

Early 1975
Gates and his old school friend Allen call MITS and claim to have developed a BASIC
language interpreter that will work with the Altair. MITS agrees to see it. Gates and Allen
work night and day to get the programme ready in time.

Some two-and-a-half thousand miles away in Silicon Valley, California, a loose association
of computer "hobbyists", called the Homebrew Computer Club, is also taking an interest in
the Altair. Among its number are Stephen Wozniak and Steve Jobs.

Allen travels to Albuquerque in New Mexico where MITS is based and successfully
demonstrates the version of the programming language BASIC that he and Gates have
developed. MITS is delighted and makes Allen vice-president and director of software.

Return to top

FOUNDING MICROSOFT

Summer 1975 - Spring 1976


Gates joins Allen in Albuquerque, developing BASIC for
the Altair. During this time, they start to refer to their
own venture as Micro Soft or Micro-Soft.

February 1976 Gates' future success was tied to his


Microsoft company
Gates' "Open Letter to Hobbyists" is published in the
Homebrew Computer Club newsletter. He makes the
radical demand that computer enthusiasts respect the copyright of software developers.

Spring 1976
Gates returns to Harvard to resume his studies.

1 April 1976
Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, who have formed Apple Computer, launch their first
product - the Apple I personal computer.

26 November 1976
Gates and Allen register the trademark "Microsoft". Their work has become independent of
MITS. Gates has given up his Harvard studies altogether, and he and Allen are taking on
staff.

December 1978
Microsoft's revenues exceed $1m.

1 January 1979
Gates and Allen move Microsoft from Albuquerque to their home state of Washington. They
open offices in Bellevue, a few miles from where they grew up.
11 June 1980
Gates hires his old Harvard friend Steve Ballmer as the company's first business manager.

Return to top

BREAKTHROUGH DEAL

Summer and Autumn 1980


Gates agrees to produce the operating system for the
personal computer being developed by IBM, the world's
leading computer company. Crucially, Microsoft retains
the right to license the operating system (MS-DOS) to
other computer manufacturers. Gates took just over half the company
and his pal Allen just under a third

1 July 1981
Microsoft is incorporated. Gates gets 53% of the company; Allen 31% and Ballmer 8%. The
initial stock price is 95 cents.

1981
Microsoft's revenues reach $16m. The company employs 128 people.

1983
Allen is diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease. Although his treatment is successful, he never
returns to full-time work at Microsoft.

1985
Microsoft's revenue reaches $140m. The company employs 910 staff.

Return to top

OPENING WINDOWS

20 November 1985
Microsoft releases a graphical extension to its MS-DOS
operating system. This is the first retail version of
Windows.

February 1986 Harvard friends Gates and Ballmer


have worked together for 28 years
Microsoft moves to Redmond, a leafy suburb of Seattle.
This is where the company's headquarters have been
located ever since.
13 March 1986
Microsoft goes public. On the first day of trading, the share price rises from $21 to $28.

1987
A young Texan called Melinda French joins Microsoft as a marketing manager. She and
Gates start dating.

18 March 1988
Apple files a lawsuit against Microsoft, claiming that the "look and feel" of Windows is too
similar to the Apple "graphical user interface". The legal battle is to last six years and Apple
eventually loses.

1989
Microsoft Office is released.

22 May 1990
Windows 3.0 is launched and sells 100 000 copies in two weeks. Microsoft had also been
working with IBM on a similar product - called OS/2.

20 August 1990
Microsoft executives attending a special meeting at the Shumway Mansion decide to
abandon OS/2 and focus on Windows 3.0. Headlines later declare that Microsoft and IBM
had "divorced".

Return to top

RIVALS HIT BACK

1992
Some of Microsoft's competitors start to meet to share
concerns about the increasing dominance of Gates'
company.

October 1992 Gates faced tough commercial and


legal challenges as his wealth soared
Forbes declares Gates to be the richest man in America,
worth $6.3bn.

20 January 1993
Microsoft's market value overtakes that of computer giant IBM.

5 February 1993
The Federal Trade Commission is deadlocked when it meets to rule on whether Microsoft
has broken anti-trust rules. The matter is referred to the Justice Department in August.
20 March 1993
On his way back from Palm Springs with Melinda French, Gates diverts their private plane to
Omaha. Gates' friend, billionaire Warren Buffet, takes them to a jewellery shop he owns.
Gates buys French an engagement ring.

1 January 1994
Gates marries Melinda French.

9 June 1994
Gates' mother, Mary, dies of cancer at the age of 64.

14 October 1994
The company Netscape offers its Mosaic Navigator as a free download on the internet.

December 1994
Spoof stories start circulating that Microsoft has plans to buy the Catholic Church. Microsoft
issues a press release denying the story.

5 July 1995
Forbes declares Gates the richest man in the world, a position he holds continuously until
2008.

Return to top

INTERNET DAWNS

26 May 1995
READ THE DOCUMENT
Gates reveals the future direction in which he wants to
take Microsoft. In his "Internet Tidal Wave" memo to
senior staff, he says: "I now assign the internet the
Read Bill Gates' internet memo
highest level of importance."
[446KB]

24 August 1995 Most computers will open this


With a lavish publicity drive, Windows 95 and Microsoft's document automatically, but you may
online service MSN are launched. need Adobe Reader

September 1995 Download the reader here


Gates takes his second proper holiday in 20 years when
he travels to China with his family and close friends.

October 1995
With seven million copies of Windows 95 already sold, Microsoft's profits climb by 58% in a
year.
7 December 1995
Gates announces Microsoft's internet strategy to the world's press. In his controversial
"Pearl Harbor" speech, he reveals plans for Microsoft's own internet browser - Explorer.

August 1996
Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 3.0.

1996
Netscape asks the Department of Justice to investigate Microsoft's discount to computer
manufacturers that install Internet Explorer 3.0.

May 1998
The Department of Justice and the Attorneys General of 20 states sue Microsoft for illegally
thwarting competition.

25 June 1998
Microsoft launches Windows 98.

August 1998
Gates spends three days giving his deposition by video to
the Department of Justice inquiry.

September 1998 Gates urged Microsoft to ride the


Google is incorporated by founders Larry Page and internet 'tidal wave' of the 1990s

Sergey Brin

January 2000
Ballmer is appointed chief executive of Microsoft. He and Gates later acknowledge that they
both had a difficult time adjusting to their new roles.

7 June 2000
Following the Department of Justice inquiry, Judge Jackson rules that Microsoft should be
split into two units: one to produce operating systems, the other to make other software
components. He calls Microsoft an "abusive monopoly".

2000
Microsoft's revenues reach $229bn. The dot-com crash does not affect it as badly as many
other companies in the sector. The company's headcount climbs to over 39,000.

Return to top

DIGITAL DECADE
2000
The Gates family launches the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, a charitable organisation intended to "reduce
inequalities in the United States and around the world".
They donate billions of dollars of their own money, and it
soon becomes the world's biggest philanthropic
Bill Gates combined charitable work
organisation. with continuing to develop Microsoft

June 2001
The Court of Appeal overturns Judge Jackson's order to break up Microsoft into two
corporations. However, it upholds his ruling that Microsoft illegally used licensing
agreements with internet service providers and PC manufacturers to freeze out the
Netscape internet browser.

25 October 2001
Microsoft launches Windows XP.

15 November 2001
Microsoft branches out into the gaming console market with its high-profile launch of the
Xbox. This product is a direct competitor to Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube.

March 2004
The European Commission brings anti-trust action against Microsoft.

August 2004
Google's flotation paves the way for a dramatic acceleration in the company's growth: two
months later it overtakes Yahoo!'s market capitalisation with a value of $50bn.

January 2005
The Gates' endowments to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation reach almost $29bn.

Return to top

NEW FRONTIERS

15 June 2006
Gates announces that he will step back from Microsoft in
two years to concentrate on his philanthropic endeavours.
He reveals he has a carefully thought-through "transition"
period planned and that he hopes to remain chairman of
the company for life. In 2008 Gates finally withdrew from
the Microsoft front line
January 2007
Windows Vista and Office 2007 are launched.

7 June 2007
Gates returns to Harvard to collect an Honorary degree.

1 Feb 2008
Microsoft makes a bid of $44.6bn for search engine company Yahoo!. For the first time in its
history, Microsoft plans to borrow some of the necessary funds. Yahoo! rejects the bid.

27 February 2008
Microsoft is fined a record 899m euros by the European Commission because of the
company's failure to comply with earlier anti-trust rulings. Microsoft is appealing against the
fine.

Summer 2008
The Microsoft headcount is now almost 90,000 worldwide.

27 June 2008
Gates is leaving his full-time role at Microsoft to concentrate on the work of the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7457191.stm

leadership, role of leadership in an orgn (why they are important for an orgn), How COE can
change Dission making- Assignment

Leadership

1)Introduction

History from cipd, Charactership, type, quality

2) Ceo- introduction and imp for orgn

3) Important of CEO in orgn

4) Mission and example

5) conclusion

6) reference
www.businesslink.co.uk

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