A homework about Bill Gates ( Microsoft )

A homework about Bill Gates ( Microsoft )

At first We want to give you some information about the dates and the education of Bill Gates. Bill Gates was born on October, the 28. 1955 in Seattle. His father William Henry Gates Jn. was a very popular lawyer whose intellectual abilities are enormous. Bill was the second child and only son of his parents. His mother who was a teacher earlier is now an active committee-member in many charity clubs. Bill raised up in a wealthy atmosphere. So he had all the possibilities to live the life he wanted. He was a very intelligent pupil who had been always the best one in his school class. In the academic-aptitude test he got the highest marks. His parents sent him to the Lakeside School, a private school famous for the intellectual success of their students. On this time personal-computers were so expensive that also the Lakeside School could not buy them. So a so named Mother-Club invested 3000$ for a computer. But not to buy one. They could only rent a mini-computer without a screen-display because the screen-display was not invented to this time point. Bill Gates and his school friend Paul Allen discovered their passion for computers. They tried to get any information about computers they could achieve but nobody of their teachers knew anything about the new technology. So they tested anything they could with the school computer. They were so fascinated that they came during the night illegal to the computer school room to programme. On one night Bill was surprised by his teacher for computer science and he was so surprised of Bill’s knowledge that he asked him if he can help him to make the informatic lessons. Both friends developed their own special computer interests. Bill started to write programs for practical applications. Paul Allen was fascinated by the assembler codes, a machine orientated programming language to control every component part of the computer. In 1969 Bill wrote his first program for a "Kreuz und Kringel Spiel". A consequence for the experiments was a stop of unlimited computer time for both of them because the energy costs were too high for the school and also for their parents. Bill and Pauls passion wasn’t breakable. So they find new ways to use computer time free. They founded a so named Lakeside Programming Group and sold their science about DEC-Programming to a CCC-Programming firm. They had to find the mistakes in the software and their payment was free computer time. During this time they consolidated their experiences with the hardware and software of the minicomputers. It was clear that this friends would not went the legal way to get the information because they were with some others the only people who understand the real system of this computers. So they developed themselves to hackers. Bill found a possibility to avoid the password protecting system. And so he could knock out the security system of the PDP-10Users. But his deed was discovered and the CCC-engineers fired him and his Lakeside Programming Group. But Bill could not stop it to crack computer systems. He cracked the cybernet-system but after some minutes every computer in the system crashed and Bill was discovered again. On this time point he swore that he would not touch any computer keyboard any more. For one year Bill stopped programming because he thought about his career in the future. He decided to take the traditionally way to go to the college.

In the autumn of 1971 Paul Allen started his studies at the Washington State University with the main subject informatic. In the January of 1973 the last year for Bill at the high school Paul and Bill get a Job as programmers by TRW. This was the first job where they get their first money, 165 $ for a week. But Bill do not wanted to end his life as a programmer. He want to study a "normal" subject. So he elected a law study in Harvard. But he did not cut the friendship with Paul. So they decided to develop a new programmer language for a new microprocessor ( 8080 Intel ® 4086 Intel ). 1975 Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the Micro-Soft Company in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bill Gates developed Disk Basic a programmer language for file diskettes which have been discovered in 1976. Earlier every computer information had been written on so named punch cards. On November 1976 Bill left the university and took on two programmers and gave all his power for the developing of Microsoft. In the spring of 1977 the company take officially place in the Central Tower in Albuquerque. Bill Gates worked hard seven days per week. They sold two programmes Basic and FORTRAN on diskettes. On 1977 the first crisis occurred. Another firm refused the payment of a program whose rights are based on Microsoft. So Microsoft ( Bill Gates/ Paul Allen ) brought them to trial. Bills father, the lawyer helped them and so they won the proceeding. The sales amount to 500.000 $ per year. In 1979 Bill Gates come to a contract with Kazuhiko Nisho who wanted to support Microsoft in Japan. Nisho had the same age as Bill and both are fanatic in computer programming. Gates and Nishes developed in a co-operation work the first portable microcomputer ( laptop ). NEC marketed this computers in Japan, Olivetti in Europe and Tandy in the USA. The co-operation with Nishes ended in 1986 because Nishes "did not want to sell his soul to Bill". With the ending of the year 1978 Microsoft earned its first million. In the summer 1978 Bill gates moved his company to Seattle. In 1978 Microsoft started the developing of BASIC for a new processor type ( 8086 ) from Intel. 1975 Microsoft increased its sales about 2,5 million dollar. In 1980 Microsoft had done a long step in the international business. Bill Gates signed a contract between IBM and Microsoft. IBM is the largest producer for computer hardware in the world ( 28 milliards sale per year ) and this huge company wanted a contract with a small software firm. Microsoft should develop a new utility system for a new computer. This utility system is nowadays world-wide in use and known. This first version of MS-DOS ( MS-DOS 1.0 ) was ready on the 12.08.1981.

Since 1982 Microsoft has began with the development of calculation programs. The first program was named VisiCalc, a program which calculates dates or facts. Users had now the possibility to start simulations and calculations in their own office. They had not to instruct other firms to calculate their accounts department. But in November of 1982 another program was developed. Lotus 1-2-3, a better program than VisiCalc. So Microsoft lost this business fight against Lotus. In April 1983 Microsoft presented its second application, a text-manager. They named this product MS-Word. This program was a revolution for the office work. Beginning on that point you could save your documents on diskettes, you could correct mistakes and so on. All in all it was a huge time- saving for the secretaries. It was the first text program with bold type, underlining, printing in italics. This software version has been improved since today. This homework is for example written by MS-Word 7.0. In the following years Microsoft presented some more programs but the next successful program was Excel. It was showed the press on the second may 1985. This program simplified the calculation program. The next aim of Microsoft and many other software firms was the development of a graphic surface for MS-DOS. This program should be named Windows. After many problems and corrections of the program Microsoft presented on 21. November 1985 Windows 1.03. This program stood for a increase boom of Microsoft.
In the year 1986 Microsoft went public. The shares of the company are highly wanted. The consequence was a sale amount of 197 million dollar a year. B ill Gates has been the youngest multimillionaire in the world. Microsoft was the employer of 1200 workers. In the following years till today Microsoft presents always new versions and programs ( Access, Windows for workgroups, Windows NT, Windows 95, Works, Micrografx, Powerpoint,...). The sale amount increased up to 1 billion dollars per year and about 5200 workers ( 1990 ).

The company Microsoft is now the biggest software firm in the world. The workers of the Microsoft Company are extremely young, on average under 30 years. This describe the sentence of Bill Gates "Microsoft is a drug". The whole spirit of enterprise of this firm is opener and more free than in German firms. Conversation between the employee’s do not use the formal "Sie".

All over the world in nearly each country Microsoft has establishments which commercialise their products. This company was built up from a genius.

In my opinion Bill Gates is a fantastic business man and computer scientist. Other people who knows himself personally have different opinions about the richest man in the United States. The first ones describes him as a tyrant, because he can be cruel by his work. But he is also very generous if someone follows his conditions. The second ones says he is a boy. This can be right if you see his optimism. He allows himself no borders. But on the other hand he has a strongly developed sense of law. The third persons see him as the genius. The most people are specialised on one science. Bill Gates has a enormous intelligence. He can speak with you about nearly all things and his memory is fantastic. The fourth people see him as the persistent man because he does not give up any project which he want to end. The fifth persons thinks he is a child of Fortune. Now the sixth persons, they mean he is a visionary. His opinion about programming is that programming is an art. He give his live for the microinformatic.

1704 words

Reference: Die Microsoft Story ( Bill Gates und das erfolgreichste Softwareunternehmen der Zeit )

by Daniel Ichbiah of the English version by Patricia Künzel

Wilhelm Heyne Verlag München published in California 1991