There is no denying that Bill Gates is one of the greatest entrepreneurs and businessmen of all time. We can all thank Bill Gates for bringing Windows to the masses and changing the way that the everyday normal consumer uses computers.

Gates was the pioneer for Windows and it was his dream to have Windows running on every computer in every home. If we look at the 90%+ market share that Windows now enjoys I think it’s fair to say that he got pretty close to that dream.

Of course Gates is also known for donating extraordinary amounts of his wealth to various charities around the world. This great infographic that I found from Frugaldad shows just how much work he’s done as well as how many lives he has saved. Interestingly enough they compare him to Batman, but this infographic is well worth looking at.

If you didn’t know the extent of the work that Bill Gates does, be sure to check it out

Source: frugaldad.com

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Microsoft had a very bad reputation in the area of security. It’s programs were easily infected with viruses, corrupted, and otherwise compromised. But 10 years ago, Bill Gates sent an e-mail to all Microsoft employees announcing that software security was going to be a priority for the company. He announced a new initiative called Trustworthy Computing (TwC).

His e-mail in part said: “Every few years I have sent out a memo talking about the highest priority for Microsoft. Two years ago, it was the kickoff of our .NET strategy … Over the last year it has become clear that ensuring .NET is a platform for Trustworthy Computing is more important than any other part of our work. If we don’t do this, people simply won’t be willing – or able – to take advantage of all the other great work we do. Trustworthy Computing is the highest priority for all the work we are doing….”

At the heart of the Trustworthy Computing dictum were three core attributes necessary for making it work, security, privacy, and reliability. In other words, Microsoft’s software must incorporate these features in order to satisfy the customer base, and assure them that Microsoft’s security element is in full gear.

The Security Development Lifecycle

The Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) incorporates privacy development practices. It lead to the development of Microsoft products, which delivered more secure and private computing experiences for customers. This raised the bar for potential attackers making it more difficult to go after the software.

Reliability

There was a progress in reliability with the Windows Error Reporting tool. It has led to fewer system crashes, which meant an increase in productivity and reducing user frustration. They also published privacy standards for developers and gave consumers layered privacy notices when using certain software.

Cloud Computing

Microsoft’s next challenge will be the Azure Cloud service. Cloud computing is expected to grow dramatically in 2012, with more enterprises moving some operations to that environment, with Microsoft offering Office 365, a cloud based service, security is of utmost importance.

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A campaign started by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and billionaire investor Warren Buffet appears to be paying off as 38 US billionaires have now pledged to give at least 50% of their wealth to charity.

The list, which includes Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen includes such names as George Lucas, David Rockerfeller, Ted Turner and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.  George Lucas has publicly said “I am giving the majority of my wealth to improving education.  It is the key to the survival for the human race.”

The campaign was started in June this year to convince US billionaires to give away at least half of their fortunes either during their lives or upon death.  The BBC has reported…

“We’ve really just started but already we’ve had a terrific response.”  Mr Buffett said in a statement.   He added: “The Giving Pledge is about asking wealthy families to have important conversations about their wealth and how it will be used.”

Bill Gates and his wife Melinda have so far given away more than $28bn through their foundation.  According to Forbes magazine there are 403 billionaires living in the US.

The full list of signatories can be found here.

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In a follow up to the article written by Jason, it should also be pointed out that the fallout caused by Apple’s market valuation being bigger than Microsoft has had a lot of people commenting about the stewardship of Steve Ballmer.

As Jason correctly points out, Microsoft has seen its share of failures and successes. Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, has now been at the helm for 10 years.  He has managed a large tech company as well as anyone could expect. That is, for a man without vision or the tech savvy that Bill Gates had before him. Doing well is not a small acknowledgement. How many companies would hire Ballmer, on the spot, if they had the opportunity? With a track record like his, many would.

But that is just the issue. Whose track record is it?  Could anyone run Microsoft right now? Well it looks like a lot of top rated corporate Presidents and CEO’s could if for nothing else than to keep it on the profitability road. Many shareholders like that; but most shareholders are also looking at the future, and in real terms, the future computer industry does not look at all like Ballmer sees it.

No doubt that the PC will continue to dominate the small computer market, at least at the business level. But at the home or consumer level, the PC is dead. The iPad proved that. Most home computer users are now seeing the iPad as a form of entertainment. They don’t need to have the capability of backup, and processing power to do queries or write programs. The iPad is for entertainment purposes. That’s the future.

Consider this, would you watch a television show that focused on how to build, maintain, and troubleshoot problems on the television; how to get more channels; how to increase the volume; how to increase the sharpness or clarity? Or would you watch television for comedies, dramas, documentaries, and movies and concerts. Which of these two questions favors the consumer? The answer is obvious.

The PC was a semi-entertainment vehicle for about 15 – 20 years, but that is being replaced. Gamers took the PC and made playing games on the computer fun. It made the PC an entertainment vehicle. And whether you like it or not, the download industry with all of it flaws and legal and moral issues also contributed to making the PC an entertainment vehicle. You can download movies, television shows, music, e-books, and games and many other products.  But new features, like the “App” has turned the PC on it head and Apps offer many different forms of communication and possibilities. And the Apps work on a portable and mobile device. Lugging a PC around is not necessary. Even laptops can be clumsy.

So we are at place in technology history where some can see the future, and others see, well just the bottom line.

Gates vs Ballmer

As you can see from the graph, the growth of Microsoft has changed considerably between Gates and Ballmer… Right, the conditions are different, and the business climate is different, and the competition is more frenetic. Gates did not have to contend with Google, or the iPhone, and iPad.

But Gates had vision … Ballmer just sees a bottom line. The story, as reviewed by Jason, shows up in the graph.  Not enough emphasis on the future technology, too much is on the past. Office and Windows are great programs, but this is the mainstay for Microsoft; these are their cash cows. What is coming up next? Touch is a great technology, but the market is not there yet at the level that would make this a cash cow.

The story of technology over the last 50 years, but especially over the last 20, is that tech changes very fast, (a cliche, I know). But it is also a truism that the companies that can adjust to the change will succeed. By the way, have any of you reading this bought an IBM PC lately? They started the business PC revolution you know.

See Microsoft: It’s A Wonderful Life.

Chart: Microsoft’s performance under Gates vs. Ballmer

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On February 4th 2010,  Dick Brass, former Vice President at Microsoft, wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times about the state of the union, the union being Microsoft. It was not a pretty picture that he painted.  No innovation, too much internecine warfare, very few successful products…these were some of the complaints laid down by someone who had worked at the worlds largest software company for years.

His biggest complaint centered on the fact that the most succcessful products were conceptualized decades ago. Like the car manufacturing alternates, GM, for one, who relied on trucks and SUV’s to make the case for profits, Brass charges that true innovation has been stifled from the inside.

At this site, however, there have been numerous posts about the growth of Windows7, touch screen innovation, Browser modifications, and other technology changes, all coming from Microsoft. It is hard to reconcile the charges that Brass makes with the things we read about the Microsoft does. It does fail, take Vista, but it bounced back within less than four years with Windows 7.

The other charge that was made was that true hardware innovation has come from competitors of Microsoft. Apple, Blackberry, and other companies have run away with the IPhone market; that’s true. But Microsoft has not pursued the hardware market, not in the way that Brass would like to see.

But it is also true that many of the software innovations have been implemented by Microsoft. Touch screen technology is now coming of age because of what Windows7 is capable of doing.  But there are other software innovations that Microsoft has done.

Take the XML innovation. A small Canadian company sued Microsoft, and won, over patent infringement in the XML implementation in Office 2007. Yet it is precisely the fact that Microsoft has used XML in so many products that this technology is now more widely available. This is not to excuse or forgive Microsoft for the patent infringement problem, but it goes to show that without Microsoft, the XML technology would not be widely used.

Many will no doubt say, that Microsoft has squashed the competition unfairly or illegally, and it deserves to fail. Many of those issues have a grain of truth to them. But I’m reminded of J.D. Rockefeller in the late 1800′s when he organized, and later monopolized the oil industry. If you joined him you made money, if not he squashed your company and went belly-up. Microsoft probably did something like that in the 80′s and 90′s. Forced the competition to become partners, or Microsoft simply stole the technology if it couldn’t buy it. Undoubtedly this lead to the US government, and later European governments to go after them. But on the other hand, a lot of companies became very successful using Microsoft products. Just ask Dell, HP, and a host of other PC makers which are reporting sales notwithstanding the present day economy.

Many of the problems that Brass talks about are probably true, but that may have to do more with Steve Ballmer not being the tech guy that Bill Gates was. Ballmer is a good manager, but a visionary, no he is not. His stockholders are probably very happy with him, in the same way that the stock holders at GM or Ford were happy for decades. But look what happened there.

Brass makes the complaint over and over that innovation is lacking at Microsoft. With that I would have to agree. Innovation is the one element that must be maintained, or you are stuck in the past selling typewriters over and over again.

You can read the New York Times article Microsoft’s Creative Destruction.

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It’s a shame that Windows 7 isn’t going to be launched on 20th November as that will be Windows’ 24th birthday. Yes, Windows 1.0 was launched way back on 20th November 1985 and next year will be Window’s 25th birthday. I’ve used every version of Windows since 3.1 (I remember staying up all night trying to complete Solitaire!) and in my view Windows 7 is the best version since Windows XP.

Below are some issues of Windows over the last 24 years all the way from Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 which users can buy from tomorrow. I’ve added the images below, as well as some interesting facts about Windows that I wrote to celebrate its 21st birthday 3 years ago.

Which version of Windows was your first? Which version of Windows is your favourite and why?

[Show as slideshow]

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21 things you never knew about Windows, Microsoft and Bill Gates:

1. Windows 1.0 was released on 20th Nov 1985 and the hardware requirements were 256KB of RAM, DOS 2.0 and two floppy drives, two years late.

2. The retail price was $100, which is worth about $177 in today’s money – the same as Windows XP Home.

3. Microsoft sent out a press kit featuring a squeegee and a washcloth to announce the launch of Windows 1.0, a full two years before the product was launched.

4. If Bill Gates had got his way, he would have called it “Interface Manager”. 21 years later, I don’t think Interface Manager Vista, or Vista Interface Manager would have had the same ring to it….

5. When Vista was launched Microsoft were David fighting Goliath, and had to fight many court battles:

“We weren’t kidding that we bet the entire company on it,” Gates recalls. “The strange thing was we were a much smaller company at the time. We were competing to establish this platform with companies larger than ourselves.”

6. Windows 1.0 was only out for two weeks before it had to be patched to fix bugs (sound familiar?).

7. Windows crashes an estimated 25m times a day.

8. Windows 1.0 included a large number of utilities that are still part of Windows today – Calendar, Notepad, Terminal, Calculator, Clock, Windows Write and Windows Paint, Control Panel, and the Reversi game.

9. Support for Windows 1.0 was weak, and even Microsoft’s own apps didn’t support it. In fact, Excel and Word didn’t work with Windows until 1987 and 1989.
10. Windows 3.1 was the first stable release, which led to many hardware manufacturers preloading it on their computers. This proved to be a major turning point in Windows history and world domination.

11. Windows 3.1 (Pre-release name Janus) was released in March of 1992. In its first few months on the shelf it sold over 2 million copies (including upgrades). The Windows 3.1x OSs were groundbreaking for their time and they paved the road for today’s modern Microsoft environments.

12. Between 1986 and 1996 Microsoft’s stock soared hundredfold and it was estimated that Microsoft had created 10,000 millionaires by 2000.

13. Bill Gates earns $250 every second, $20m a day and $7.8BN a year.

14. If Bill drops a thousand dollar bill, it’s not worth his while to pick it up, as he’ll make the same amount in the time it takes him to pick it up.

15. If Bill Gates was a country, he would be the 37th richest country in the world.

16. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the wealthiest organisation for charitable grants with assets of approx $65Bn.

17. Erik Noyes from Charles Schwab came up with the phrase Blue Screen of Death “BSoD” in 1991.

18. Bill Gates scored 1590 on his SAT. Paul Allen, scored a perfect 1600.

19. The Windows operating system has 50 million lines of code (a line averages 60 characters) and grows 20% with every release. It’s put together by 7,200 people, comes in 34 languages and has to support 190,000 devices–different models of digital cameras, printers, handhelds and so on.

20. An estimated 250-300K applications have been developed for Windows.

21. Over 5 million testers signed up for Vista’s release candidates

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<discuss> Something that many technology journalists seem to have missed is the fact that the latest iterations of Windows and OS X are the first, and only, not to have been helmed by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.  Gates bowed out from Microsoft the other year and Steve Jobs was, sadly, not well enough to work at the time.

Jobs made a triumphant return to public life today but what type of Apple has been moulded in his absence?

I believe that we’re seeing with Windows 7 and OS X Snow Leopard operating systems that have been created by the accountants.  Without the creative and domineering input of these two giants, Microsoft and Apple have simply been left to ‘get on with the job’ for the first time, and it’s interesting they’ve both coincided.

What we’ve got are two operating systems that are light on new features but leaner and fitter.  Would we have had these under Gates and Jobs?

We’ll probably never know the answer to this question, however I don’t believe it can be argued that either operating system will be worse off for the change.  Both are much improved over their predecessors, which goes doubly so for Windows 7!

With Jobs back at work will we see more innovation and excitement with the next version of OS X?  Conversely, with Gates now firmly out of the picture, will future versions of Windows turn into something that’s solid and dependable but, ultimately, a little boring? 

Only time will tell. </discuss>

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With speculation that Windows 7 will launch this October, which is the date I’ve believed since the outset, will you be watching the launch keynote event and what type of event will it be?

It’s usually an entertaining two hour romp a bit like the Eurovision song contest here in Europe.  You’re waiting for the disasters and the bits that don’t work, and watching over-excited Microsoft employees getting all worked up over a tiny little feature that’s hard to get worked up over anyway.  It’s usually a laugh.

The difference this time is that we won’t have Bill Gates.  It will instead be Steve Ballmer bellowing at the crowd like Brian Blessed addressing his hawkmen in Flash Gordon.  What will the the Ballman’s bellowing boom bring to the mix?

So will you be watching the keynote and what type of event do you think it will be?

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It looks like 2009 is going to be a good year for Bill Gates.  Not only has he reclaimed his place as the World’s richest man thanks to the global financial crisis ousting Warren Buffet who lost $25bn (ouch!) in 2008 , but analysts are also predicting that the launch of Windows 7 could add up to an extra $1.5 billion to Microsoft’s earnings.

Why?  Well because Microsoft will be throwing their entire marketing machine behind encouraging customers to upgrade to more expensive versions of Windows 7.  Selling Operating Systems is big business for Microsoft, accounting for 28% of its $60.4 billion in annual revenue.

No wonder Bill is smiling all the way to the bank….

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Long Zheng speculates in an article on his website I started something that Microsoft will officially present Windows 7 at the The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference hosted by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher on May 27.

Bill Gates and Steve Balmer will both be present at the conference which has seen its share of important Microsoft announcements in previous years. The interesting question will be how Windows 7 will be shown on the conference. Will it be a theoretical approach where Bill and Steve talk about Windows 7 and what they want to achieve with this new operating system or will they even show one of the Milestone releases of Windows 7.

In addition to just discussing their ideas and vision, it’s rumored the event will actually involve a demonstration of Windows 7 in some fashion. Whether or not we’ll actually see a live build of Windows 7 or purely a technology demo of a specific feature remains a mystery, but it’s sure exciting.

It would definitely be interesting if they would demonstrate an early Windows 7 version to the public.

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Bill Gates revealed some exciting new information about the upcoming next Microsoft operating system codenamed Windows 7. He spoke at the Windows Digital Lifestyle Consortium in Tokyo and had the following to say about Windows 7.

We’re hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I’m very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don’t have a lot of work to move that data back and forth.

Previous assumptions that Microsoft would indeed avoid a Vista 2 and make Windows 7 faster and resource friendly seem to come true. Connectivity seems to be another keyword that is taken seriously in Windows 7.

The whole transcript of the speech is available at the Microsoft Presspass website.

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Bill Gates isn’t involved in the day-2-day running of Microsoft anymore. Giving away a LOT of money isn’t as easy as it sounds, and Bill and his wife Melinda are beavering away to make the world a better place.

That probably would explain why Bill said this week that Windows 7, would come “sometime in the next year or so”. According to a Microsoft spokesperson who was quick to correct Bill, the correct date is more like January 2010.

Personally, I think it will be more like Q4 2010 as Microsoft are notorious at missing product launch dates. Maybe, we should start a sweepstake as to Windows 7 actual launch date where the nearest guess wins!

What would you put your money on for a Windows 7 launch date?

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