Here is an article on Bill Gates. It is from ZDNet. I quit reading their site many years ago because they were usually very anit-Mac. That may have changed. I don't know. I did agree with the intro to the piece......
A week or two ago I made an unguarded comment about Bill Gates being an opportunist rather than either a visionary or a programmer. That drew a lot of argument - on both issues.
The visionary versus opportunist side of this is pretty clear. Visionaries create new strategies, drive the public's understanding of new ideas through innovation, and generally lead the charge in new directions. Microsoft's record of innovation is a null set: just about everything they've done has been opportunistic, making money on other people's ideas or products.
Basically Bill Gates has made more money for himself and his shareholders selling Steve Jobs' ideas to the public than Apple has, but it's easy to see who's been the visionary and who's been the opportunist in that relationship.
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There was a documentary made years ago that interviewed participants from the early days of the personal pc. Back when Timex Sinclairs were in use. There were large groups of pc users that would discuss small apps that they were writing that had practical uses. Gates was floored that these excited pc users would freely share this information. I would fall squarely on the side that Gates is beyond oppurtunistic and for the pc industry is a parasite. His software deals with OEM's were akin to highway robbery. If Gateway wanted to build 30K units running Windows he would force them to buy 50K units of the OS or none at all. Also he would strike deals that forced pc manufacturers to load only Windows on their boxes and not allow IBM's OS2 to be loaded on any units made by that company. Gates isn't smart or clever, just greedy.
He got his start way back in college with the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT. Most of the people in the club that were into computers were all about the free distribution and sharing of software. Bill was one of the few that disaGREED.
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