Entrepreneur

The real legacy of Bill Gates

W
David Crow says the billionaire Microsoft founder, who retires this month, is revered and loathed in equal
measure – and will be remembered more for his philanthropy than his software

hen Bill Gates gave his own take

on the ‘I have a dream’ speech
in 1975, his vision of a computer
in every office and home looked
distinctly unlikely. But having
devoted his life to that cause,
Gates has done more to make the dream a reality than
any other individual. Now, after three decades at the
helm of the world’s most successful software company
and amassing a fortune of $50 billion, the world’s rich-
est geek is giving up his day-to-day role at Microsoft.
Many will mourn his departure; others won’t be sorry
to see him go. Revered and loathed in equal measure,
it’s impossible to think of a more divisive figure in the
technology world.
The 52-year-old Gates’s contribution to the computer
revolution is hard to overstate but difficult to define.
Although he is an accomplished programmer, Gates has
never been much of an inventor – the talent normally
required for successful technology entrepreneurs. When
he made his killer move by licensing the MS DOS oper-
ating system to IBM in 1980, Microsoft had not written
a single line of the system’s code, but bought it off the
peg from a little-known software firm. Instead, Gates
will be remembered for the shrewd deal he struck with
IBM, one which guaranteed his firm a royalty every time
a PC was sold. His second triumph was talking IBM out
of exclusivity, paving the way for Gates to license the
system to many other computer manufacturers.
Using his enviable position as the provider of the
world’s operating system, Gates built a huge software
Caption here empire, but the pattern that emerged in the first deal
Caption never really disappeared. It was Apple, not Microsoft,
who designed the first viable graphic user interface, but
Gates who provided it to the mass market in the form
of Windows. Nor did he invent the word processor or
spreadsheet, although his Office suite became – and
still is – a cornerstone of nearly every firm’s productiv-
ity. The list is seemingly endless. Novell was the first
big name in networking while Netscape launched the
inaugural mass-market internet browser; in nearly every
case, Gates developed a competitor to an existing prod-
uct and won through.
His professional legacy is not one of innovation, then,
but one of trend-spotting. Every time he saw something
that would be big, he mimicked and often bettered it,

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 using his exponentially growing profits to develop and Bill Gates’s cv fact that the operating system is bundled with every
refine his products. He was, of course, famously bullish, Born 1955 PC, just as it was in the 1980s, very few consumers are
with no market out of bounds. As far as Gates was con- Educated Lakeside buying upgrades. The problems extend to Microsoft’s
cerned, if he gave firms notice that he was about to enter School, Seattle and other big cash cow, Office; although the latest version
their sector, they had better get out of the way quick. Harvard has received critical acclaim, few firms are willing to
It was not determination alone, however, that splash out on training in the middle of the credit crunch.
cemented Gates’s reputation. He had an inimitable Founded Microsoft 1975 Unsurprisingly, the difficulties have begun to affect the
knack of being able to talk to both techies and chief Launched first retail firm’s bottom line. After a string of impressive financial
executives in language they understood. As Microsoft version of Windows performances, its quarterly profit dropped 11 per cent on
grew, he began to empathise with the needs of global 1981 last year.
corporations, but always included network administra- Founded the digitial Software is the least of Microsoft’s worries, however.
tors and rank-and-file IT staff in his consultations, devel- imaging company Corbis The firm’s botched attempt to buy rival Yahoo has seri-
oping products that made their working lives easier. In 1989 ously damaged its reputation. In trying to purchase an
truth, Gates conquered the corporate software sector by Established William H ailing competitor, Microsoft was admitting that it could
looking out for the little guy. Gates Foundation 1994, not fight the Internet behemoth Google by itself. Despite
Unsurprisingly, technology evangelists have found Bill & Melinda Gates having spent over $10 billion internally to try and launch
Microsoft’s sheer dominance hard to stomach. They Foundation 2000 some kind of offensive, Microsoft still lags a poor third
argue that in building a monopoly on the computer desk- behind Yahoo and Google in nearly every measure of
Director, Berkshire
top, Gates stifled creativity and innovation; who knows, success on the web. Gates used his last few weeks to try to
Hathaway 2004–
they ask, what else could have been achieved if his reassure people that his firm can make it without the help
spectre had not loomed so large over the development Received honorary of Yahoo, but no one is convinced – least of all investors.
of the computer? Painting him as a greedy, self-serving knighthood from the The huge irony is that the cloistered approach that
megalomaniac, those who Gates has defeated claim that Queen 2005 Gates cultivated – and which served Microsoft so well
he has profited at the industry’s expense. in its heyday – will be the firm’s undoing. The latest
For all the chattering that goes on in Silicon Valley, wave of online entrepreneurism is underpinned by an
however, the fact remains that while Gates has amassed open, outward-looking approach which involves direct
a huge personal fortune, he has also left the world a contact with consumers. Facebook’s recent decision to
richer place, socially and financially. Without his ruth- give away its code, allowing anyone the chance to make
less drive to increase computer usage and his determina- money by piggybacking on its site, was a shrewd move
tion to standardise everything with the Microsoft stamp, that has been crucial to the firm’s success, but moves
the huge growth in the global marketplace – along with like these are part of a concept which Gates just doesn’t
the social benefits is has brought – would be far less understand. In truth, if Microsoft was going to conquer
remarkable. the Internet, it would have required a huge change – or
There is, of course, some truth in the allegations an earlier departure for the man at the top.
against Gates. His strategy has been shamelessly protec- Gates will not be bored by retirement. As from next
tionist, earning him the attention of anti-trust authorities month he will work full time for his charity foundation,
in the US and Europe. Smaller software developers have the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which received
always struggled to fight Microsoft when it has poached a huge boost in 2006 when Warren Buffett (a long-time
their talent and ideas, despite the fact that Gates defends bridge partner of Gates’s father) virtually doubled its
his own patents vociferously. But Microsoft is not funds. Already giving away $1 billion a year, the foun-
that different from other tech firms, nor is Gates more dation has made some real differences; aid experts say
tenacious than other celebrated chief executives in his the $1.5 billion that was earmarked for the immunisation
industry. Steve Jobs of Apple, a one-time arch-enemy of children in the developing world has saved more than
of Gates, now pursues just as ruthless a protectionist 1.7 million lives. The billionaire Gates is comfortable
strategy with the iPod and online music store iTunes. in the role of philanthropist; the agitated nervousness
Similarly, Google is well known for stamping out fledg- which characterised his keynote speeches virtually
ling competitors, despite its proud claim to ‘do no evil’. disappears when he talks about the causes he holds dear.
Gates provided the blueprint for building a successful Watching footage of Gates walking through a Nairobi
technology firm; his competitors may criticise, but they slum, applying the same tenacity to helping the poor as
are more than willing to steal it. he did to business, one is struck by the thought that we
Despite these achievements, Gates will leave the firm need more people like Gates in the charity arena. l
he built from scratch amid palpable uncertainty. When
he announced two years ago that he would be phasing Bill and Melinda
out his executive role, he had a plan for securing his Millions of lives saved
professional legacy. Gates hoped that Windows Vista, through their foundation
the product of nearly six years’ labour, would achieve
critical acclaim and commercial success while the Xbox
would be the world’s best-selling games console. Simi-
larly, he expected the firm to be at least making inroads
against Google.
The reality couldn’t be more different. Sales of Vista
have been stodgy due to a poor reception from network
managers, many of whom feel it is less secure against vi-
ruses that its predecessor XP. Some firms are so worried David Crow is
that they’re actually removing the new operating system technnology and
and replacing it with the old one. Similarly, although telecoms reporter at
consumer sales figures are artificially buoyed by the City AM

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