BACKGROUND-
Born : October 28, 1955 Seattle, Washington, US
Father : William Henry Gates II (lawyer)
Mother : Mary Gates (School Teacher)
Residence : United States
Excellence: Math’s & Science
Alma mater: Harvard University
Occupation: Chairman of Microsoft
Enrolled : Lakeside preparatory school at age of 12
YEARS BEFORE MICROSOFT
1968: Formation of Lakeside programmers group.
1971: Opportunity from (ISI) to develop program to manage payroll system. Royalties were given.
1972: Started their own company.”Traf-O-Data”. It existed until Gates entry into the college. In senior years Gates & Allen got opportunity from TRW to eliminate worms in computer.
1973: Gates & Allen got job in Honeywell.
1974: Duo Entered into agreement with MITS for purchasing right to distribute BASIC
YEARS AFTER MICROSOFT
1975: Gates & Allen formed their own company “MICROSOFT” in April.
1977: Gates released version of FORTRAN language for microcomputers.
1978: Duo introduced a version of COBAL. Around this time Microsoft emerged as market leader.
1979: Microsoft develop new version of BASIC. Sales had crossed 1 Million copies which generated revenue of more than US$ 2.5 million.
1981: 35% of employee were working for IBM project
KEY TO SUCCESS
Strategic Decision regarding Product development.
Division of work in small team.
Review meetings for project every three months.
Development of “Customer feedback Loop”. In this program inputs are taken from customer.
Gates created an End user program in 1980.
Gates not only focused on developing new technology but also created market for it. For Eg CD ROM
RIGHT PERSON ON RIGHT JOB
Talented individual were invited to work for his company.
Formula for hiring employee is n-1.where n was number of people required.
Promotion of an informal culture at work.
Recruiters were asked to attend meetings to understand actual need of Organization.
Decentralization was followed. When there is difference in opinion Gates act as Arbiter.
Reward system was followed.
The Criticism
Analysts say that Microsoft was in no way innovative; as it just reformed existing products to satisfy customer needs. There was no actual new product development.
Some products of Microsoft were Bad, in the sense, they were difficult to work with & were costly to maintain.
Management at Microsoft went Bureaucratic & Red Tapism had seemed to be dominating the structure.
Some people were also of the view, that Gates had concentrated too much of decision making in his own hands, which had rendered the other Senior Employees helpless.
Gates completely miscalculated the Internet Revolution and failed to introduce suitable alternative product.
The US govt had filed an Anti Trust Suit against Microsoft for acts of creating Monopolistic practices.
Microsoft dominated the Software industry with its major share and pre-empted competition in the market by early announcements of new products. (before even any planning).
It tried to create complete Monopoly in the Market.
Conclusion
In spite of being accused by many critics, Bill Gates had created a history of his own…
He was a Visionary
He was a Leader
He was a Philanthropist
He was an Inspiration for all….!
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