Bill Gates Gladly Admits That He's a Geek, And His Kids Are Still Banned From Ap

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Kamab:
Not quite. A programmer had reverse-engineered CP/M into his own DOS, pretty much just learning how to make an OS. Gates knew of this person... when IBM knocked on his door looking for an OS to put on their POS off-she-shelf PC. Gates paid about $25,000 (give or take) to that programmer for all rights/code to it.

That how the world got started on the crappiest OS ever used. Yes, by 1985, DOS was substandard to Mac and Amiga systems which had things like "Long file names with upper and lower case". Having to use DOS/Win3.1 from 1993~1996 was painful.

MS also destroyed development... but as you say, by creating a "Standard", it might have been for the best... in some ways. MS has screwed up the browser standard with the junk called IE.

No, Gates did not start it all. The Apple II and Commodore64 started the desktop business. IBM only came out with the PC because their workstation/Server customers wanted an "IBM" branded PCs. So they threw together junk, licensed the OS from Microsoft, called it "PC-DOS". IBM expected their PC to be a niche thing for their customers - paying $5000~8000 per unit.

But IBM was STUPID and Gates was SMART. When IBM didn't patent/lock down their PC design and given MS the ability to resell their own MS-DOS. It allowed the creation of the CLONES... For which companies like Dell, Compaq, Acer, etc would never have been created.

It it wasn't for the clones. The PC would have died in the corporate world 1990.

We would then have Amigas and Mac wars instead... with Amiga having about 60~70% of the market, the rest to Mac... rather than 95% Windows vs 5% Mac (I'm guesstimating this number)

Gates and MS are far better business-men than technology. They rarely ever invented or brought something original to the market. IE, MS-OFFICE, OS, etc were bought by someone else.

Gates needs to get over his Apple issues, considering that MS still has stock in Apple. What if his kids want a small MP3 player, the size of a Nano but with quality. Whats left of ZUNE? Oh yeah, the iPod touch clone in 3 storage sizes.

There isn't a ZUNE out there that is as small or upto date.. the LAST Zune model was released in 2009. The market share is at-or-below 1%. Guess gates can stock up on Zunes for his employees and family, eh?

His kids, will one day.... have iPods of some sort.
 
[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]how did they become a monoply? they were the best... i believe thats the casue. government made damn sure they didn't abuse that power either. yea, they have more money so can make a competing product in almost any field, or buy up things they think are great ideas. you see where this is going? why is microsoft seen as bad?[/citation]

"they were the best" ... emphasis on "were".
Being in a monopoly position almost never means being the best. They might have gotten their monopoly by being good, but once they got it they had no reason to stay good.
The OS market simply favors a monopoly. One operating system for all is both cheaper to make and offers benefits to the user (no compatibility issues, more programs available, etc.) and developers.

This might change in the future but it looks like the desktop OS market simply is a natural monopoly.

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]government made damn sure they didn't abuse that power either.[/citation]
Are u joking?
Governments never intervened in Microsoft's price policy. Microsoft has had insane profit margins on Windows and Office for decades.
Their current net profit margin is 55% higher than Apple's net profit margin.
 
Semantics about his business ethics aside he has a very interesting approach to donating his money. Most philanthropists donate to causes close to home, cancer is popular because so many people have lost or been close to a someone with cancer. He takes an almost academic approach to the situation; getting the most bang for his buck if you will.

I don't know if his foundation work makes him a good man, for all I know he gets his rocks off beating puppies, but his call for the billionaires of the world to relinquish their wealth to the betterment of the world (and starting that party himself) is a rather heroic act.
 
Has any one really pay close attention about Gates bans Apple Products from his house. Not the kid's life. Sides since Bill making them work for the money I am sure Bill does not care what products his kids will buy since they worked for it. Who knows maybe his kids are planning to move out later. Just trying to clear things up a bit.

Just maybe he doesn't want his kids to become ifads.
 
[citation][nom]shompa[/nom]Microsoft is an abusive company. They have used their monopoly position to make hundreds of billions. After stealing money from you and me, Bill gives part of it away part of the money to charity. Somehow this makes him great. Microsoft is a company that totally lacks innovation. They have always relied on copying other companies and buying companies. Not even DOS manage Microsoft to invent. You need to think hard to list 5 things that Microsoft invented. I am so happy that MS finally is going away. Google and Apple are finally liberating us from Microsoft poor products.[/citation]
Are you using a Windows OS right now? Be honest. If you're not have you used Windows in the last 24 hrs? If the answer is still no, then you're either using OSX (I hope you know Apple hasn't actually invented anything either) or Linux (which is actually awesome but probably not the case). But the fact that Windows is so versatille is enough for me. And come on Bill Gates isn't MSFT ok- he hasn't even worked at MSFT in 3 years. Coming to MSFT itself- except for the activation stuff they had (like WGA and WAT which were really easy to bypass if you needed to) I haven't had any instances of MSFT abusing me or stealing my money.
 

thanks man that was very informative.
I was really asking a question that I didn't know about and wanted some clarification on the matter.

when it comes down to just business then yes, he is a genius.
he might be a geek but I remember he always got BSOD's when he spoke at conventions... LOL

I think all people are eccentric in there own way but it seems the rich take it to another level..
 
[citation][nom]shompa[/nom]Microsoft is an abusive company. They have used their monopoly position to make hundreds of billions. After stealing money from you and me, Bill gives part of it away part of the money to charity. Somehow this makes him great. Microsoft is a company that totally lacks innovation. They have always relied on copying other companies and buying companies. Not even DOS manage Microsoft to invent. You need to think hard to list 5 things that Microsoft invented. I am so happy that MS finally is going away. Google and Apple are finally liberating us from Microsoft poor products.[/citation]
Name 1 thing that Apple actually "invented".... They stole the mouse from Xerox....they stole the GUI from Xerox.... Laptops existed prior to Apple releasing one. SmartPhones existed long before Apple released the iPhone. Tablets existed a decade or more before Apple released the iPad.... Linux and Unix both existed long before MacOSX.... So, exactly what has Apple or Google "invented"??? BTW....Apple only exists today, because of Bill Gates....
 
Love how everyone ribbs Bill about his acquisition of DOS, when Stevie blatantly STOLE Xerox's OS, their mouse design, ect... They didn't even change the naming/file structure for god's sake. Crapple is about as magical as what I left in the toilet after a night of mexican food. Either way, a little off topic. Malaria is one of the world's biggest killers to date, and that someone (Bill Gates) is putting mony into research, and vaccines, I gotta say good on ya.
 
[citation][nom]hoofhearted[/nom]I wouldn't be so quick to put Bill on a pedestal as so many posters seem to be doing. Dig around the internet on his relations with Bilderberg, eugenics, planned parenthood, Pacific Ethanol and biofuels, GMO crops, vaccine research, and even the fact he change his money to Euros (that has to say something about what he thinks of America).[/citation]
"Patriotism is the belief that your country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." - George Bernard Shaw
It really doesn't matter what he thinks of America.
Bill-bashing is so 2002, give up already.
 
[citation][nom]malmental[/nom]QUESTION:But wasn't the entire windows concept built on DOS that he basically stole for a minimal sum of money from the developing company and then stomped them out of business.? they couldn't even take him to court and get a fair amount.?If indeed that's (I'm asking because I do not know myself, only hearsay. Someone please clear it up for me) true then I will not like him even with all his charity work.. it's probably charity work because of all the people and businesses he crushed along the way and his conscious is getting at his old ass.[/citation]
that's exactly right, his philanthropy is nothing but a PR spin because of what happened in the 90s with US authorities. and going by all the thumbs up on other quotes, people are non the wiser
 

thanks bro...
 
They say only ten million like it is some miniscule amount, in reality you could easily live your whole life on that amount. Sure it wouldn't be the most extravagant lifestyle but you wouldn't be considered poor either.

I am glad to see Mr.Gates has chosen to not leave behind all his money to his children.
 
[citation][nom]rodney_ws[/nom]I could "find my own way" in life with $10 million.[/citation]

Sure you can, not really the same for his kids though. Imagine if your own daddy had a house that was worth 550 grand and when he died he only left you 100 bucks. That's basically what his kids are facing right now. If they want to continue to live the way they do now they're going to have to work their ass off for it, from the ground up.
 
Hmm wow, lots of "Bill Bashing" going on. People still believe the old legends of him "stealing" and all sorts of nonsense. Bill bough the code and rights from the original owner for 25K, the owner had no use for it and it was sitting there growing dust. He didn't "steal" it, it was a lawful purchase of IP rights. Bill had an idea on what to use it for and thus MS-DOS was born. There is no ethical requirement for him to share his future plans with the original owner.

You can hate on MS all you want, in the end it was the openness (for developers) of the IBM PC/2 + MS-DOS / Windows platform that won the PC wars of the 80's. Both Amiga and Apple were locked down HW platforms that required all the components be licensed from Amiga / Apple. Eventually software developers went the IBM clone + MS route and thus the entire IT industry took off. When anyone can make nearly any piece of HW for your software, or make any piece of software for your HW, you have a win-win situation for all involved.
 
[citation][nom]palladin9479[/nom]the truth[/citation]
Don't let the truth get in the way of a good lie or the fanbois, conspiracy theorists and tin foil hat brigade will have nothing to rant at. Seems no good deed goes unpunished...
 
[citation][nom]rodney_ws[/nom]I could "find my own way" in life with $10 million.[/citation]
i "find my own way" without the "10 million" , and i sure i will success on my own way with the help of the "10 million" , but i just have to make my own "10 million" by my own way ......
 
[citation][nom]hoofhearted[/nom]GMO crops? All of his philanthropies seem to walk the controversial line[/citation]
One more point, just to put your idiocy to the sword.
GMO crops are controversial for why?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
He genetically engineered wheat and doubled the production in places like India and Pakistan and is credited with saving a billion lives, he got the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. I suppose that because the initial work he did in Mexico was a joint venture with the Rockefeller Foundation makes him an evil world dominating Bond villain?
If Bill is involved in GMO crops then good, maybe he can feed the hungry people of the world too.
 
palladin9479:
No, PS/2 was a failure. IT was IBM's attempt to take control of the PC market with Microchannel (Wow, Plug-N-Play slots - which Amiga and Macs already HAD), but their desktops were very expensive and still depended on MS-DOS as OS/2 was late in the game.

Bill didn't steal MS-DOS, (who said that?) He bought it legally. But that is life, if that OS wasn't available and if the wife of the other company digital-something (long dead) didn't blow off IBM - MS would never have gotten this big.

Incorrect, Amiga Hardware (and even Mac) doesn't require licensing. They made their expansion slots and developers had to make their products work. Apple's problem (more so then, than now) was expensive hardware with crappy single-tasking OS.

Amiga's failure is mostly management from Commodore. Even as a Teenager, I would have done a much better job. Amigas were far cheaper than Macs and PC and would run circles around them. It took MS 10 years to somewhat catch-up the Amiga (Win95 and it was crap).

Even installing 2001~2009's WindowsXP is somewhat OLD-SCHOOL compared to the 1989 Amiga OS 2.0. Proper management would have meant that Amiga would be a major force today. While you wouldn't want to, a 1989 Amiga 3000 CAN do the Internet...
 
[citation][nom]sykozis[/nom]Name 1 thing that Apple actually "invented".... They stole the mouse from Xerox....they stole the GUI from Xerox.... Laptops existed prior to Apple releasing one. SmartPhones existed long before Apple released the iPhone. Tablets existed a decade or more before Apple released the iPad.... Linux and Unix both existed long before MacOSX.... So, exactly what has Apple or Google "invented"??? BTW....Apple only exists today, because of Bill Gates....[/citation]

Xerox wasn't doing anything with their GUI, did they sue? They never entered the PC business (Actually, a even rougher GUI/MOUSE existed before the Apple shipped its first computer). It was Apple (Jobs) that demanded development of the LISA and Mac and how it should work. (I don't agree with Mac).

Really? What Smart-Phone was one the market with a full touch screen interface? iPhone > Android > RIM > Windows Phone7. Provide link. Yes, the old blackberries are "Smart phones" as are the older Windows Phones... THEY SUCKED BALLS! They didn't have multi-touch screen - just cursor or a ball.

Tablets? You mean the 2001 Tablet version of WinXP? Those $1500~2500 heavy, hot, stylus-driven computers? The ones in which Apple outsold in a month or so that MS couldn't move in 10 year? But wait, before then - there was the Palm and before that... the Apple Newton (1987~1998). Guess what, the guys who developed iOS... developed the Newton OS.

Face it, yeah... Apple Kicked MS in the nuts when it came to tablets.

Linux and Unix have nothing to do with OS-X... which is based off of NExT OS/BSD. But even some parts of WinNT is Unix based. AmigaOS is a variant of a "nix" as well, so it had multi-tasking since 1985.

MS and Apple exists today because of each other.

 
[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]One more point, just to put your idiocy to the sword.GMO crops are controversial for why?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_BorlaugHe genetically engineered wheat and doubled the production in places like India and Pakistan and is credited with saving a billion lives, he got the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. I suppose that because the initial work he did in Mexico was a joint venture with the Rockefeller Foundation makes him an evil world dominating Bond villain?If Bill is involved in GMO crops then good, maybe he can feed the hungry people of the world too.[/citation]

Then why did he pull his money out?
 
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