Gates, William H., III (1955–), computer software developer, businessman.Born in Seattle, Washington, Bill Gates attended one of the few secondary schools in America that had access to computers at the time. He later attended Harvard College but left before graduating. Gates and his friend Paul Allen learned of the invention of the Altair Personal Computer (PC) in 1975. Recognizing the potential market for PC software, they developed the BASIC program for the Altair. Moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the Altair was produced, they incorporated their firm, Microsoft. In 1979, they moved the company to Seattle. Gates married Melinda French in 1994.
Challenging the amateur tradition of software development, Gates argued that unless software authors could recover their costs, they would have no incentive to provide high‐quality software. In 1980, Microsoft won the contract to develop the operating system for the new International Business Machines (IBM) PC. Because IBM, unlike other PC manufacturers, used an open architecture in its machine, and because a number of other firms copied the IBM machine and used its operating system, this arrangement gave Microsoft a vast and elastic market. By 1990, as the dominant firm in the PC operating‐systems market, Microsoft was expanding its product line by developing or acquiring applications software. Because of its market dominance, it also influenced the design of applications packages developed by other vendors. By the end of the decade, Gates, a billionaire many times over, had become the richest person in the world. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 1999 with assets of around $5.4 billion, initially focused on promoting computer and Internet access, global health, children's issues, and projects concerning the Pacific Northwest.
In 1998, the Justice Department brought an antitrust suit against Microsoft for allegedly using its control of the operating‐systems market to promote its own Internet Web browser and to prevent other companies from entering the market. In June 2000, federal district judge Penfield Jackson ruled that Microsoft had violated the antitrust laws and should be divided into two companies. Microsoft appealed, and the case continued.
See also
Antitrust Legislation;
Automation and Computerization;
Computers;
Internet and Worldwide Web;
Philanthropy and Philanthropic Foundations.
Bibliography
Stephen Manes and and Paul Andrews , Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry—and Made Himself the Richest Man in America, 1993.
Bill Gates , The Road Ahead, 1995.
Robert W. Seidel