I've a problem with the premise of this article - that Gates will be remembered as a visionary.MS has been predatory and aggressive in both their business practices as well as dealing with their "partners." By sheer force of market presence, they have been able to dominate the PC software market. This is all common knowledge.Yet, what is assumed and taken as a given about the visionary status of Gates reminds me of Y2K: the majority of people ignorantly assumed that the new millenium began on 1/1/00. Actually, using correct counting, the first year on the calendar is 1 AD (not 0 AD). So, while most assummed incorrectly, a very few that cared to look at the facts were aware that the new millenium began on 1/1/01.Similalry, the assumption that Gates is a visionary is based upon the notion that it really couldn't be otherwise, since MS clearly owns (monopolizes, actually) the market. Yet this control arises not from visionary products or leaders; it has occurred due to the relentless march to market control, no matter how it's done. And that's the key: no matter how it's done.Looking back on MS's history of products, one only has to consider what occurred in the burgeoning computer industry *before* there was a MS to fully understand that there hasn't really been any innovation at MS. Their primary means of product creation was not through internal design or inspiration. Rather, it's been through either outright copying or forced acquisition. Examples,you ask?DOS? Original code from IBM (IBM having acquired the code elsewhere).Windows? A flagrant copy of the Apple GUI, which in itself was a creation using ideas from Xerox PARC (btw, there's a true group of visionaries but you hear nary a word about that...since Xerox PARC was not in the product business). Apple sued...and lost. Excel? Nope. a copy of an original idea first thought of in the early 60s and first implemented by Dan Bricklin. Remember Visicalc?The Internet? Again, no. Visionary Bill completely missed this one, and that required shfting the entire company's focus after Bill figured out that this new thing was indeed worth looking at (I have to wonder if any of the 'softies' at that time actually even used the Interent. I mean, how can you be in high-tech and not be aware of that phenomenon? I imagine a group of lemmings, er, MS engineers, wandering aimlessly in a window-less room -no pun intended - waiting for the great Bill to come lead them to the next interesting thing to work on.And this is just a few of the more obvious ones, yet these are the products that provided MS the fuel to rise to where it's at - along with a stiff dose of ruthless marketing and business practices that either border upon or are illegal.Bill a visionary? Not hardly. He has to hire them (for example, Ray Ozzie). I respect Gates' business acumen. But don't try and classify him with the real technological visionaries of the era. Just because he regularly tops the Forbes list of the richest in the word does not automatically translate into visionary status - it is clearly not deserved. Gates has not earned the right to be called a visionary - he bought it.Ms. Foley, if you're going to make such sweeping statements, please have the facts to back up such assertions.

"Yet, what is assumed and taken as a given about the visionary status of Gates reminds me of Y2K: the majority of people ignorantly assumed that the new millenium began on 1/1/00. Actually, using correct counting, the first year on the calendar is 1 AD (not 0 AD). So, while most assummed incorrectly, a very few that cared to look at the facts were aware that the new millenium began on 1/1/01."The Y2k bug was about storing two digit years, it has nothing to do with when the millinium starts. 00>99 doesn't compute well in computers, and that is what was going to happen and the whole "big deal". Sorry, but you missed that point.

Concerning item 10 on your list, it doesn't seem to me that Microsoft could have gotten away with its own version of Linux with the government anti-trust guys watching them.Just imagine Microsoft in control of the two most popular operating systems...

Although my experience is limited, I met Bill Gates at an event back in 1990 and watched him in action to see what he was made of.From the history of his success with Microsoft, my assessment is that he is no better nor any worse than any other businessman. He was simply in the right place at the right time and used the correct methods to get his way.Anyone that had his opportunity to license DOS to IBM to get started, and the inventiveness to come up with a better way to use computers (whether or not it was plagiarism from Apple or an earlier source), and the obvious wisdom to hire the talent necessary to keep things going would've been in the same place as Gates.It's not a miracle or "business acumen" that Bill Gates did as well as he did. He isn't any smarter than thousands of other computer tech geniuses. He just had good thinking when an opportunity presented itself. His just happened to be the best opportunity to date, but that doesn't mean it can't happen again to someone else.Bill Gates isn't special, just lucky.

or the driving force to open beta testing to the world - NT 4.0 SP 2.

There's a couple things you're really, really wrong about:Live Meeting - We're just now getting into this and it's great, there is high demand (Sharepoint, its close cousin is about to explode and become huge. You'll see a new breed of apps with Sharepont 3.0). With the cost of high speed interoffice connectivity (fiber) becoming more prevalent, this technology is finding a sweet spot with us and I suspect others.Tablets - The hardware and the need wasn't there before. Now, with ubiquitous wireless, we're finding many uses. Tablet orders are going up. For us anyway. Those writing of UMPCs are lacking vision as well.Microsoft Linux - I'll give you that we run VMWare ESX which is as close to Linux as we'll ever get. It has it's niche, but really, who gives a damn about Linux?MSNBC/Microsoft as content provider - Yes, MSNBC didn't materialize but Microsoft as content provider ... Ever heard of Xbox Live!? It, like the other points I've taken issue with, were before their time, their time is approaching fast.MS Money - Money is considered to be the equal and by some the better of Quicken. Depends on the reviewer/user. I personally prefer it to Quicken. I'll tell you why neither is a panacea for personal finance management - neither has simplified the process, and neither has gotten enough "free" support from credit card institutions and banking institutions. Most banks charge a monthly fee if they allow direct connectivity from either app. The software is there, the universal/transparent support from the financial industry is not.Like most leaders who are the source of so much envy and jealousy, Bill Gates won't get credit for his vision and accomplishments "until" he steps down and fades away. When people stop seeing him as a direct competitor they just can't beat, he'll get credit where credit is due.

"Computers will never need more than 640K of RAM"; "Internet is irrelevant, join The Microsoft Network" (not an actual quote, but still); "Windows 2000 is so secure no one will be able to break into it"; "Where do you want to go today?" when Win95 started.

Please don't forget guys that MS wouldn't be able to distro 'MS Linux' for various reasons. Likely namely being that Linux is a TM owned by Linus. Second the anti-trust point is also very valid. The only thing that would be possible (less the Microsoftism's that run well - Microsoft) and feasible would be two approaches. A:) MSOrfice and other apps for 'Linux' would be recompiled (so that they could even be portable) and be native X/Linux binaries - this route would be easy for Microsoft get a Univ pay them a few million put them under NDA and have them compile/port the code. The other approach would be releasing Windows for Linux which would be a Wine still Windows libraries that would let you run most Windows apps Natively. Each approach would be desired in different cases. Hell a 21'cent company that's truely flexible would release both and realize they don't need to be tied down writing an OS. Just get busy concentrating on the GUI and APPS and let the existing huge network of deverse mosly great programmers. Something like a OS is truely toooooo hard to model and get right even in large scale beta's. Linux and the like are ideal steamrooms for hashing out and standardizing good and modern OS code for the masses, and for the osbcure hardware/evnvoirments too. However the downside of a Windows Wine/Ish envoirment is that I can't picture Microsoft finding ANY academic envoirment to offload this too - no programmer in their right mind would handle the winky Windows code and then be tied to it - even is it's just for a year. Thus Microsoft would have to byte the bullet and either hope their programmers make do or try and attract Linux programmers - not and easy task either. Well it's easy however finding a good Linux programmer that takes pride in their work that would want to work at Microsoft would be ... eh ........ ... ... well. Not impossible but you wouldn't find many of them on the face of the earth

How about Windows98 First Edition? They were in such a rush to get Win98 to market, they dropped tons of features that weren’t completely tested and system ready. Then they took those features that customers SHOULD have gotten, packaged them into Second Edition, and made purchasers of First Edition pay to upgrade to what they should have gotten with First. I think ANY operating system that comes to market as a “Second Edition” should raise a flag to make one wonder what the reason is for a second edition. Now that Microsoft has dropped WinFS from the original release of Vista, plus a few other features, I wonder if there will be a Vista Second Edition.

Good point, sorry, forgot the previous poster's name, but yes, Windows First Edition should have been put on the list.Then again maybe add XP-SPzero, as SP2 was basically a brand new OS. Heck the service pack was bigger than Windows 98...Hey what about good ol' Lan Manager - did MJ forget that horrible systems while mentioning Dos4. So much the so, Microsoft ever renamed it to get away from the stigma that went with it. The newer network OS was called NT - New Technology, but we all know it meant: Nice Try...;-)And like another poster said, wonder what VistaSE will look like?

but certainly Bill's crystal ball was very dirty when he said, "640K ought to be enough...".Granted, it was IBM's decision to go with a processor that had 20 address lines. I often wonder how the landscape would have shifted if the 8088 had 24 address lines (like the 80286). Just think about the effort that went into DOS to make it work with more than the first megabyte of memory and the third party "memory management" software! I can remember spending hours tinkering with the DOS LOADHIGH statement just to free up a few kilobytes of "below-the-line" (640K line) memory even though I was using an 80486 processor that could address 4GB of physical memory.To add a dose of perspective, 64MB is the default maximum heap size of a Java VM -- a number that is always increased to handle enterprise tasks. (In my enterprise, it's not uncommon for Java to be handed 1GB of memory.)

Well, the US government does not care if Microsoft takes the whole market, the have made that crystal clear the way the antitrust action has just died silently in court when Bush came to power. So I don't think the US governement will do ANYTHING at all, no matter how MS behaves. They probably get enough money out of it and have not interest to intervene. Big Bussiness was always big buddies with republican Presidents. Innovation? Microsoft?Gates a visionary?Well, he said he would conquer the market and he did. First predict that things are going to be such and such, and then MAKE THEM BECOME like such and such, is that Vision?We don't call Hitler a visionary or Napoleon. Just because they said that they would own the world, that they would dominate it all did not make them visionaries. But maybe the term applies to all "big and sucessful, rich as nothing can be, with greed that knows no sating" businessmen.

I'd hate to be the one to break it to nigratruo, but neither of the above DID actually take over the world. They were eventually defeated. I might also add that given the internet, Linux and Google history may eventually repeat itself. One can only hope.

Microsoft did do their own version of not Linux, but of Unix. It was called Xenix and was meant to run on a PC. But they didn't own it, they had a license of some sort with AT&T.

Microsoft keyboards, mouses, and joysticks are all at best second rate if not outright junk! Why continue marketing them?

Lets not forget the good things. Here is my list:1. Windows XP2. Office Suite (98/XP/2003)3. Windows Mobile 54. Visual Studio 2003/20055. Windows Server 20036. SQL Server7. XBox 3608. Windows XP Media Center Edition9. XBox10. Halo

We use Live Meeting on a regular basis and it works very well for us. We save thousands of dollars on travel each year; it’s easy to use; reliable; has many great features and works SO much better than the other web conferencing services that we tried out. Presence is part of Live Communications Server today and more to do with IM and not web conferencing although, as she is such an expert on Microsoft, I’m sure she knows that already. I'm inferring from her comments that employees should waste time and money on unnecessary business travel and try to continually reach someone who is busy or otherwise unavailable via the phone, IM or by email. That's illogical.Regarding the Tablet PC, what is the intent behind the comment: "Microsoft recently decided to make Tablet PC functionality part of the base Windows Vista operating system, rather than to continue to champion it as a separate SKU"? It makes sense to combine it into the base Windows OS. As a customer, why should I have to tie my OS licensing decisions into the hardware purchasing decisions?Regarding some of the other comments posted:Why do people here keep saying Bill Gates said that 640K was enough? He never said that, according to: http ://www.usnews.com/ usnews/biztech/ gatesivu.htmInterviewer: Did you ever say, as has been widely circulated on the Internet, "640K [of RAM] ought to be enough for anybody?"Gates: "No! That makes me so mad I can't believe it! Do you realize the pain the industry went through while the IBM PC was limited to 640K? The machine was going to be 512K at one point, and we kept pushing it up. I never said that statement–I said the opposite of that."Where did the comparison to Napoleon and Hitler come from? Just cuz someone was successful in business in a BIG way and then spends most of their riches on helping those less fortunate (via the Gates Foundation) - how does that make him evil? Oh, wait a minute, you are correct. I remember now that Napoleon and Hitler did similar things to this:- Together with the British-based Wellcome Trust, which holds assets worth around £9bn, the foundation leads the world in charitable giving.- Foundation currently provides 17% (US$86 million in 2006) of the world budget for the attempted eradication of poliomyelitis (polio)- In June 1999, Gates and his wife donated US$5 billion to the foundation. They have donated more than US$100 million to help children suffering from AIDS- On January 26, 2005, it was announced that the Foundation had made a further contribution of US$750 million to the international Vaccine Fund to help fight diseases such as diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, poliomyelitis and yellow fever.- As of 2006, the foundation has an endowment of approximately US$26.9 billion. To maintain its status as a charitable foundation, it must donate at least 5% of its assets each year. Thus the donations from the foundation each year would amount to over $1 billion at a minimum. And if the world of Linux programmers were so visionary in comparison, why isn't that OS being run on many desktops?Of course mistakes have been made and nobody gets everything right all the time, especially over a 30 year period. I'm sure Mary Jo Foley has not made a single error of judgment in her seemingly miserable existence – ever. And I say seemingly miserable, as most articles authored by her are written with a negative slant.

a lot of us OGs (old guys) can remember when we could take a "byte" and "nibble" it into about a maximum of 4 pieces. I never saw anything about "nibbles" anywhere. What happened to the programmers that knew about this method of figureing out the method. Could have saved a lot of money in the right places....archie

The Linux one made me smile and offer a slightly different view on things - with some input from friends at http://blogs.msdn.com/stevecla01 I decided to add the Starck mouse and XBOX 360 to the list though you can't always win as I see Ironoutrigger agrees with me there :) Is a "not flops" harder then a flops list though?? :)

Yes, Hitler and Napoleon were stopped. Right and good that they were. Now Gates is not going to be stopped as it stands currently, since everybody sees no evil in it. Let me remind you that the germans did not see any evil in what Hitler was doing neither, since they did not know. On the same token, most people don't really know about the "large quality" concerns from what most of the stuff MS churns out suffers.As in Hitlers case, the secret is propaganda, today called brilliant marketing, manipulation of public opinion. As an engineer with some insight into marketing, I can tell you that MS does the later better than the first.Well, you watch Microsoft crank up the prices and keep them high and you buyers of Microsoft Software and OS will be the ones to suffer from it (and the ones directly reponsible of their incredible power), the rest of us that have adopted alternatives will know how to smile.I don't want to know what world we would live in if might would make right every time. Just because Gates is so incredibly rich does not make most things he does beneficial for the common good.Let me remind you that Hitler was also admired by millions for his boldness and his visionary ways. Often, people just see that somebody is very rich and very famous and don't ask if they deserve the reputation.A dangerous concept of human stupidity!And let's talk about Gates charitable actions:He gives MOST of his wealth to charity? MOST? Did I read correcly, so meaning more than 50% of what he owns? Well, let's give some numbers here, facts. But the number is a small percentage of his wealth.And in his case being charitable is an absolute must, dictated by PR, since his image as a business monster, killer of many unsuspecting companies (that learned too late) and stolen business ideas and outright copied technologiesWell, just because somebody he needs an improvement in image. Being the richest man in the world mandates giving to the poor doesn't it? Let me remind you of the unforgetable words of Andrew Carnegie, once the richest man in the world "to die rich is to die in disgrace"He gave away all his riches to charity and founded schools and libraries all around the planet as he grew old and neared his death. Well, you can't take it with you, can you? And you kids are going to swimm in money and will have a hard time experiencing the value of it and the necessity of a hard days work.

Software. Up until about the year 2000, the quality of software development at MSFT was just plain poor. Too many to count. Think of the lost productivity that been caused by the quality of MSFT software!What often gets forgotten is that the table PC was NOT Bill's idea. Alan Kay (Xerox PARC and creater of the windows-based UI) proposed what he called a Dynabook back in the '70s. Small, wireless, could take it anywhere you go.The other thing in retrospect is contribution to the field. With the exception of a paper clip with eyeballs, MSFT has not added a single thing to computing. Though IBM often let others create a market before they waterbuffalloed into it, it is impressive at what they added to the industry and pure science over the years.I am not a MSFT basher, but I honestly can't think of a single technical MSFT contribution to the industry.

I thought you were going to share some factual numbers to justify a figure of charitable contributions much less than 50%? Looks to be around 52% of his wealth to date (from Fortune magazine - $26Bn donated, with current net wealth estimated at $50Bn). Not sure that's correct but I would take that over your wildly inaccurate assertions.

I don't know if MS invented the mouse wheel but they were the first to market it, I think.While MS didn't start Flight Simulator (thank you SubLOGIC!), they have certainly done much to keep it on the cutting edge. FS 2004 is execellent and I'm looking foward to FS X this winter.

I was going to write a response but notafanofbillb said it perfectly. Bill Gates is a good businessman but hardly a visionary. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time for DOS but almost everything else has been bought or copied from someone else. Bill Gates and Microsoft love to sue over anything that remotely resembles Windows or their apps but they essentially copied it from the Apple GUI. They downplayed the internet and browsers until Netscape and others made it popular then jumped in with a free but inferior product (Internet Explorer) to get market share. They continue to downplay many of the newest and best features we use today then again jump in only when they start to lose market share. Of course, they always try suing others before actually coming up with anything new. No, I can think of a lot of things to call Bill Gates but visionary is definitely not among them.

No, mfeeney93, Microsoft didn't invent the mouse wheel. I had one from Logitech at least a year before Microsoft came out with theirs. And there were others on the market by then. Once again, it wasn't their technical innovation. It was others. They just copy things once they become popular and then use their marketing power to try to squeeze out those who have made computing what it is today.

MSXBack in the days when most computers used 8-bit processors, Microsoft attempted to create an industry standard with an OS called MSX. I'm pretty sure this came within a year or two of when IBM introduced the PC. It used a similar business model to what Microsoft used with MS-DOS: companies could come up with their own extensions to a standard hardware architecture, so long as they adhered to the base standard. I'm not sure what CPU was used, but it was 8-bit architecture. Software was expected to be compatible across machines. Anyway, A few Japanese companies attempted to get into the American market with MSX machines, but they didn't take off. The only one that seemed to gain any prominence was Spectravideo.It's a product that got written about back then, but I think quickly faded within a few years.

I think making software for Linux would have been a better option than making their own distro.They make Office for Mac, why not Linux?

If there was a visionary within MS, it was Paul Allen. It was he who pulled out Bill Gates from the smoky rooms where he was obsessed with poker playing, to inform him that the microcomputer was coming and now was their chance. Bill didn't seem so very much interested then...

About the paragraph "10.No Microsoft Linux!", just to remember (see also the bozeic post) that Microsoft release Xenix (is licensed version of Unix) to the market in 1980, many years before Linux, and some figures from AT&T stated that this was the most popular Unix installed base. That is not a prove that they have software developed for Linux or a "Microsof Linux", but ".Net" is not exclusive for Windows, any ".Net" software runs on Windows, BSD and Linux, and also the Microsoft software runs on Apple that now has a Unix OS, so I thing that Microsoft is focusing for now more on applications, but in the near future (also Jimmy Buck post) maybe we will see all kind of Microsoft Servers (Exchange, SQL, ISA, LCS, etc...) running on top of any Unix like...

The MSX microcomputer (also mmille10 post) joining with Sony and others, yes that was a flop! On that time the Sinclair ZX Spectrum (I have one) was a success, but ware is Sinclair (the company) today?

Maybe is good to not forget that to be successful we need to try different things so the flops belong to the process. Many say that Bill Gates is not a visionary sorry I must disagree. Also I think that Sir Clive Sinclair is a visionary, but with less management skills than Bill Gates.

To Mitch Seventyfour:
You know that NONE of those quotes is real, do you?
Not a single one of them.

Hello guys! I have some questions. I mean need some help.
Where i can read more about this problema?
Please, don't derect me to http://google.com i know about it.
Please derect me with some links.
thanks!
UCAKK^^

Hello guys! I have some questions. I mean need some help.
Where i can read more about this problema?
Please, don't derect me to http://google.com i know about it.
Please derect me with some links.
thanks!
UCAKK^^

you know, microsoft didn't invent the mouse. It was done by those dudes at Xerox PARC back then, with the first GUI system that used clickable menuus instead of command lines.

Yeah, I have to agree with the great comments of K. Wilson. I would hardly call Gates (or Jobs for that matter) a visionary. Without writing too much, the bottom line is that PARC, (Palo Alto Research Center) a division of Xerox, envisioned and invented nearly all the fundamental computer technology that we use today. In 1973 (Boca Raton, FL I believe), Xerox really made the first personal computer called "Alto" (albiet not mass marketed like the Altair 8800 from MITS in New Mexico in 1975, which is actually considered the first). At PARC over 100 Altos were connected via ethernet for email purposes, not to mention the GUI and object-oriented programming that made the made Alto completely revolutionary at the time. Jobs admitted to stealing ideas after visiting PARC in the 1970's. Gates stole ideas from Jobs. The original inventors were the true visionnaries. Too bad for the Xerox executives, they were to clueluess to realize how valueable their technology was and did nothing to protect it.

Everyone in a progressive business has things that are really helpful and good or wishes that they had done something different. I think one of the great things he did is to package Office Suite and originally sell the entire suite for $99.00. Don't forget before that there was Dbase, and Word Perfect [Word Star, etc.], Hardvard Graphics, separate spread sheet (I forgot the name), some personel organizer progra (I also forgot the name), font packages you had to buy (Bitstream), etc. ect. which he packaged and not only gave us integration but some free stuff. Go Bill!