Research

Michael Dell was born on February 23, 1965 in Houston, Texas. He grew up in a well off Jewish family. When Michele was 15, he took apart a new Apple II computer and rebuilt it just to see if he could. Dell went to Memorial High School in Houston, where he did not always do well academically. One of his teachers actually told him that "he would never go anywhere in life." He attended the University of Texas at Austin with hopes of becoming a doctor. Dell started his own business called, PC's Limited, selling computers from his dorm room. Michael Dell ended up taking the $1,000 his grandparents set aside for him, and dropped out of college and began to build his own company.

In 1987, PC's Limited changed its name to Dell Computer Corporation. Dell became the most profitable PC manufacturer in the world. When he started his company in 1984, the manufacturers were all selling standard models through retail stores. Now there are sales of US $49 billion and profits of US $3 billion in 2004. Again the company changed its name to Dell, Inc. in 2003. Dell is recognized as the largest online commercial seller of computer systems with an average of over $30 million per day in online sales. The value of Dell's stock has risen almost 70,000 % over the past decade.

In 1999, Michael Dell wrote a best selling book, Direct from Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry. In March 2004, Dell stepped down from CEO of Dell, Inc. but stayed Chairman of the Board. Dell received a few awards including, "Entrepreneur of the Year" from Inc. Magazine; :man of the Year" from PC Magazine; "Top CEO in American Business" from Worth Magazine; "CEO of the Year" from Financial World and Industry Week Magazines.

Dell currently has offices in 34 countries with nearly 36,000 employees. Recognizing the extra and unnecessary costs of retail distribution, Dell's innovative direct service industry has created a PC that is inexpensive and designed to meet the needs of the individual customer. Michael Dell currently is the longest-serving CEO in the PC industry. Michael Dell has established a number of foundations within his organization committed to philanthropic and community services. These foundations work to advance educational, environmental, business, economic, and social issues.

Michael and his wife Susan have a foundation that aims to improve outcomes for children around the world in a measurable way. The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation recently granted $50 million to the University of Texas. The grant will enable three new, world class facilities at UT Austin.

Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington. He was born into a wealthy family. His father set up at $1 million trust fund for Bill Gates when he was born. Gates excelled in school in math and science. He went to a very exclusive prep school called Lakeside School. Bill Gates scored at 1590 on his SATs, a perfect score is at 1600. He enrolled at Harvard University in the fall of 1973 to pursue a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science. During his second year at Harvard, Gates co-wrote Altair BASIC for Altair 8800 along with Paul Allen and Monte Davidoff. Like Michael Dell, Gates also dropped out of college but in his third year to pursue his career in software development.

In 1975, Gates and Allen developed an Altair emulator that ran on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter. Allen and Gates were able to buy the rights for the BASIC Altair platform. This is when Gates left Harvard to found Microsoft, which later became known as Microsoft Corporation, with Allen. Five years later, Microsoft landed the contract to develop the operating system for IBM's new line of PCs. By 1983, forty percent of all personal computers were running on Microsoft's operating system. In the 1980s, Microsoft introduced its own version of the Graphic User Interface (GUI). It released "Windows" as an alternative to other DOS command lines. By the late 1980s, Microsoft Windows had begun to make serious headway against the other DOS-based GUIs.

In 1999, Gates wrote Business @ the Speed of Thought, a book that shows how computer technology can solve business problems in fundamentally new ways.

The release of Windows 3.0 in 1990 was a gigantic success. Today almost all computers come with Microsoft software pre-installed. The Microsoft Company has become the largest software company in the world. Gates has been named the wealthiest person in the world for the past several years. Gates was CEO for the company until 2000 when Steve Ballmer took the position. Gates' role at Microsoft has primarily been management and executive roles. On June 15, 2006 he announced that come July 2008, he will transition out of the day-to-day role with Microsoft. He wants to have more time to devote to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He will still continue his role as chairman and act as an advisor on key projects.

Oprah Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954 in, Kosciusko, Mississippi. Her family were Baptists. They were very poor. Winfrey's father was in the armed forces when she was born. Winfrey spent the first six years of her life living with her grandmother. They lived in poverty. Her grandmother taught her to read before age three and took her to church where Oprah became known as "the preacher". Her grandmother would