Bill Gates History
William (Bill) H. Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft had revenues of $51.12 billion, and employs more than 78,000 people in 105 countries and regions. Microsoft announced that effective July 2008 Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. After July 2008 Gates will continue to serve as Microsoft’s chairman and an adviser on key development projects. The two-year changeover process is to ensure that there is a smooth and orderly transfer of Gates’ daily responsibilities.
Born on Oct. 28, 1955, Gates grew up in Seattle. Their father, his mother, Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent, and chairwoman of United Way International. This shows that bill gates was not raised in a poor environment. Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School. There, he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at age 13. In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University,. While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair.
In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Guided by a belief that the computer would be a valuable tool on every office desktop and in every home, they began developing software for personal computers. Under Gates' leadership, Microsoft's mission has been to continually advance and improve software technology, and to make it easier, more cost-effective and more enjoyable for people to use computers. The company is committed to a long-term view, reflected in its investment of approximately $7.1 billion on research and development in the 2007.
In 1999, Gates wrote Business at the Speed of Thought, a book that shows how computer technology can solve business problems in fundamentally new ways. Business at the Speed of Thought has received wide critical acclaim, and was listed on the best-seller lists of the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and Amazon.com. Gates' previous book, The Road Ahead, published in 1995, held the No. 1 spot on the New York Times' bestseller list for seven weeks. In addition to his love of computers and software, Gates founded Corbis, which is developing one of the world's largest resources of visual information - a comprehensive digital archive of art and photography from public and private collections around the globe. He is also a member of the board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which invests in companies engaged in diverse business activities.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed more than $3.6 billion to organisations working in global health; more than $2 billion to improve learning opportunities, including the Gates Library Initiative to bring computers, Internet Access and training to public libraries in low-income communities in the United States and Canada; more than $477 million to community projects in the Pacific Northwest; and more than $488 million to special projects and annual giving campaigns.
Aim of the business
Microsoft is a very old multifunctional and
multi-integrated firm even though the firm has been involved in many areas of
the technological world the firm purpose goes back to the beginning of its existence. The existence of this firm was because Bill Gates
had a dream this dream was a vision that was way a head of its time and was far
fetched at this time. But because of his entrepreneur skills and qualities he
was persistent to fulfil this vision. The vision of Microsoft was that Bill
Gates believed that everyone one in the world could own a personal computer.
Microsoft believes that they can provide IT users with powerful methods of presenting information in an easy to understand, manner. Also, by exploring elegant, subtle, awareness techniques, Microsoft strives to preserve the user’s task flow and minimise interruption. As a company, Microsoft value integrity, honesty, openness, personal excellence, constructive self-criticism, continual self-improvement, and mutual respect. Microsoft is committed to their customers and partners and has a passion for technology. They aim to take on big challenges, and pride themselves on seeing them through. They hold themselves accountable to they’re customers, shareholders, partners, and employees by honouring their commitments, providing results, and striving for the highest quality.
Characteristics and personal qualities of Bill Gates
Positive approach to risk-taking: even though Gates was brought up in a family that was
not poor he managed to utilise their financial opportunities by going to
university. Even though he when to one of the top notch universities he risked his career by dropping out of his university. He kept
a positive mind while doing this to further develop and endeavour on his
passion the firm he started off with his friend.
Positive attitude: thorough out Gates career it is easier to see that he is an
ethical person that looks to cause a positive contribution to society. This can
be seen through his donations to none profitable firms, as well has health
schemes and various other society building organisations. If you look at the
values and mission statements of Microsoft it is easy to spot how optimistic his
values are.
Problem-solving: Bill Gates was expelled from University this was a problem
for him but he seemed to over-come the problem by utilising his personal
characteristics as well as his resourced entrepreneurial skills to start up
Microsoft which counter the problem of being university drop out. This shows
that Gates has a good view of the future and plans to make it work to his
advantage.
Flexibility and adaptability: Gates has proven that he has a very flexible and
innovative mind; he has engaged his professional entrepreneurial skills and
integrated those skills in order to counter compete strong competition in his
industry he is currently at heads with Apple who are the only threat to his
monopolistic market. Gates has learnt to be dynamic and flexible always being
the market leader and has sustained this position in the market.
Innovation and creativeness: Gates has been innovative with his firm he has
develop his firm into more than one market but has become successful in nearly
all the ICT related markets from video game gurus (X-BOX) to cellular phones (
with Microsoft Portable) that is in celluar phones, palm tops and obviously
laptop computers. Micro soft was one of the first firms to produce self
upgrading soft where with basic AI (artificial intelligence) this was a world
break through form micro-software. The diversification of Microsoft is so complex
and so successful.
Intuitiveness: Gates is an interesting individual he is always inquisitive
and analytical to any new venture. Gates intelligence has always led him to
make calculated risks, for example when he dropped out of university he knew
that IT and soft ware would become interdependent and that the world was moving
into an information world. Gates made a calculated risk when he made his career
his life this choice was very intuitiveness.
Drive to succeed: Gates is a man with grate visions when he started off Microsoft
his believes seemed far fetched and impractical. His ideas must have suffered
massive criticism but Gates persistencies lead him to success. His drive to
achieve such a profound goal has been sustained and is constantly under going
criticism and controversy. Many people do not look at the good that Gates has
brought onto the world and extremists and activists have acted against
technology and have sued Gates for monopolistic abuse. Although all this has
happened Gates has always prevailed and kept a heads up. He has the drive to
succeed in fact he saw an opportunity and went for it and the business is still
successful today.
The enterprise qualities which are associated with a successful entrepreneur such as Bill Gates
To be an entrepreneur requires more than creativity and a taste for risk. An enterprising individual is one who can:
1. Think ahead
2. Make sure connections
3. show initiative
4. make decisions
5. show leadership
Thinking ahead to stay ahead of the market there are to things that need to be considered the first thing would be to identify future demand. On September 2005 HMV announced the launch of a music download service ( charging 79p per song).they did this 3 years after the launch of apples iStore, this was a bad move because HMV had moved too slow to anticipate how successful this would have been , this is an example of poor enterprising. The second part of being a good entrepreneur would be anticipating the problems and opportunities involved with the firm. In autumn 2005 Denial Reilly (Liverpool to the canaries) and Martin Hallstead (oxford to Cambridge) were both about to launch their airlines. Yet the New Orleans hurricane had pushed aircraft fuel up high to record levels. If they had forcasted well they could have considered that the price of oil could go up, this is imperative because fuel prices are the main operating costs for airlines. They had not foreseen the event.
Make connections
In business, one thing leads to another. To have an idea of how everything connects together is vital. For instance, having the Olympics in London in 2012 has major implications for many firms, especially in the hotel trade. The enterprising hotel manager must think ahead. After 2004 Olympics, Athens was left with too many new hotels in the wrong location for tourists and travellers. Business entrepreneurs should use techniques such as drawing up time lines and mind mapping, this encourages them to think about what options they have.
Show initiative
Initiative is crucial. It means, not waiting for orders or until you see what everyone else is doing, but leading your self. It is imperative for entrepreneurs to capitalise on opportunities and not procrastinate on their ideologies. This requires the entrepreneur to be bold, decisive and willing to accept that they might be wrong. The initiative might not be as huge as Apple’s move into the phone industry with its new iPhone. Examples of exercising being initiative would be:
- Cadbury’s market research manger uses a large part of her budget to explore customer opinions of white chocolate-based face creams; if a successful new product emerges, she will be very popular and if not the firm will doubt her judgment.
- Jamie Oliver’s initiative in the approaching Greenwich council to get permission to carryout his school dinners experiment.
Only through initiative can a business hope to be first into a market place; and being first means that there is a lot of chance to make a vivid impact.
Make decisions
Decision making is crucial, not only when initiative could be taken, but also in response to difficulties. A hairdresser with thee outlets may have one that is losing money. Decisions are required. Perhaps the outlet should close or perhaps it needs a revamp. When the bankrupt bookstore chain Dillons was taken over by Waterstones, over half the shops where found to have been losing money for years, but no one did anything about it.
To make decisions successfully, the key is to find as much accurate information as possible this would clarify the decisions made and would make the decision more viable. For example at the end of the year 2005 new castle united FC was in disarray, having taken just one point from their first games, the board had two choices , to either sack their manager or back him with money to buy better players. The club spent £25 million on new players; the decision was clear even though it proved to be incorrect.
Showing leadership
Leadership has a lot to do with qualities such as decisiveness, initiative and the ability to think ahead. One more element, though, is the personality and there character to make people believe that the entrepreneur can achieve. This can be helped some personality attributes such as:
• honesty
• charisma
• self-confidence
• enthusiasm
Good leadership and entrepreneurship needs to be based on good judgement about the right decision or initiative, plus the determination to see thing through. It also requires an ability to make people want to share the leader’s path.
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