History of Computers - Bill Gates
Maddie Clayton
Bill Gates and his partner, Paul Allen, were the co-founders of Microsoft, one of the most lucrative computer software corporations in history. Bill Gates has also created a non-profit organization called The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on health and education[1].
Contents
Overview
Bill Gates was born on October 28th, 1955 in Seattle, Washington to William H. Gates II and Mary Gates[2]. He was sent to a private school called Lakewood School, where he first discovered his interest in computer programming. Soon after, he graduated and went to Harvard, where he went to school until his junior year. In 1975, he dropped out of Harvard to begin work on Microsoft with his friend Paul Allen.
In 1980 Microsoft sold an operating system called PC-DOS to IBM for $50,000[3]. This deal helped the company gain prestige. In 1985, Bill Gates released the first version of Windows, an operating system, which has developed over the years into the current version, Windows 7. This software is used by many people in the world today, along with Microsoft Office, released in 1990[4]. Microsoft Office is and office suite software composed of many applications such as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Gates worked as the CEO and a software programmer, though he was criticized for his business decisions, as they were anti-competitive[5]. Bill Gates now works only part-time at Microsoft, and owns 8% of the stock in his company, making him one of the most wealthy people of all time[6]. Gates makes so much money that, with an average earning of $114.16 per second, it it literally not even worth his time to pick up a dropped $100 bill off the ground. [1]
Significance
Bill Gates is important to the history of computers because he created Windows and Microsoft Office, two of the most useful and most used programs in the computer world. These programs are used in the business world and on personal computers, and improve efficiency in many ways. Bill Gates was one of the most important men in computer history.
Links
- <http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/?tab=biography/>
- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates/>
- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft/>
