Management And Change, Bill Gates

Management and change

--Bill Gates (The richest man in the world)

Bibliography

William (Bill) H. Gates is chairman and chief software architect of

Microsoft Corporation, the worldwide leader in software, services and

Internet technologies for personal and business computing. Microsoft

had revenues of US$32.19 billion for the fiscal year ending June

2002, and employs more than 50,000 people in 72 countries and

regions.

Born on Oct. 28, 1955, Gates grew up in Seattle with his two sisters.

Their father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. Their late

mother, Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington

regent, and chairwoman of United Way International.

The birth of Microsoft

A. The idea

In December of 1974, his partner Allen was on his way to visit

Gates when along the way he stopped to browse a magazine. After he

saw that, it changed his and Bill Gates's lives forever. On the cover

of Popular Electronics was a picture of the Altair 8080 and the

headline "World's First Microcomputer Kit to Rival Commercial

Models." He bought the issue and rushed to Gates's room. They both

recognized it was a great opportunity for business and their business

brain started to work. They knew that the home computer market was

about to explode and that someone would need to make software for the

new machines.

Within a few days, Gates had called MITS (Micro Instrumentation and

Telemetry Systems), the makers of the Altair. He told the company

that he and Allen had developed a BASIC that could be used on the

Altair [Teamgates.com, 9/29/96]. They had not even written a line of

code. They had neither an Altair nor the chip that ran the computer.

The MITS company was very interested in seeing their BASIC since they

never seen such thing before. Gates and Allen began to work

feverishly on the BASIC they had promised. The code for the program

was left mostly up to Bill Gates while Paul Allen began working on a

way to simulate the Altair with the schools PDP-10.

When they both felt their program was ready. Allen was to fly to MITS

and show off their creation. The day after Allen arrived at MITS, it

was time to test their BASIC. Entering the program into the company's

Altair was the first time Allen had ever touched one. If the Altair

simulation he designed or any of Gates's code was faulty, the

demonstration would most likely have ended in failure.

B. The start

In the Spring of 1968, the Lakeside prep school decided that it

should acquaint the student body with the world of computers

[Teamgates.com, 9/29/96]. Computers were still too large and costly

for the school to purchase its own. Instead, the school had a fund

raiser. A few thousand dollars were raised which the school figured

would buy more than enough time to last into the next school year.

In 1968, Computer Center Corporation opened for business in Seattle.

It was offering computing time at good rates, and one of the chief

programmers working for the corporation had a child attending

Lakeside. A deal was struck between Lakeside Prep School and the

Computer Center Corporation that allowed the school to continue

providing it's students with computer time.

Gates and his comrades immediately began exploring the contents of

this new machine. It was not long before the young hackers started

causing problems. They caused the system to crash several times and

broke the computers security system. They even altered the files that

recorded the amount of computer time they were using. They were

caught and the Computer Center Corporation banned them from the

system for several weeks.

Bill Gates, Paul Allen and, two other hackers from Lakeside formed

the Lakeside Programmers Group in late 1968. They were determined to

find a way to apply their computer skills in