BILL GATES THE ENTREPRENEUR AND INDUSTRIALIST

It is a little over 30 years since Bill Gates founded Microsoft Corporation. The world we have today bears little resemblance to then. This is especially true because of computers and all that represents.

We look back a little at his history: Gates attended Lakeside School, Seattle's most exclusive prep school, where he was able to develop his programming skills on the school's minicomputer. He later on went to study at Harvard University, but dropped out without graduating to pursue what would become a lifelong career in software development.

In 1975, Gates and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft Corporation to market their version of BASIC, called Microsoft BASIC. It was the primary interpreted computer language of the MS-DOS operating system, and was key to Microsoft's early commercial success.

Early in those heady days Gates was self-promotional and even confrontational. In February 1976, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists, which shocked the computer hobbyist community by asserting that a commercial market existed for computer software. Gates said in his letter that software should not be copied without the publisher's permission, which he equated to piracy. While legally correct, Gates proposal was unprecedented in a community that was influenced by its ham radio legacy and hacker ethic, in which innovations and knowledge were freely shared in the community.

Nevertheless, Gates was right about the market prospects and his efforts paid off: Microsoft Corporation became one of the world's most successful commercial enterprises, and a key player in the creation of a retail software industry.

In the late 1980s, Microsoft and IBM partnered in the development of a more advanced operating system, OS/2. The operating system was marketed in connection with a new hardware design, the PS/2, that was proprietary and secret to IBM. As the project progressed, Gates oversaw continuing friction with IBM over the system's design, hardware support, and user interface. Ultimately he came to believe that IBM wanted to marginalize Microsoft from having any input in OS/2's development.

On May 16, 1991 Gates announced to Microsoft employees that the OS/2 partnership was over and Microsoft would henceforth focus its platform efforts on Windows and the NT kernel. In the ensuing years OS/2 fell to the side and Windows became the favored PC platform for the world.

There is so much more of this story that is the history and lore for this extraordinary young man. There are thousands of young students and entrepreneurs today striving to replicate his success. We also know that an incredible industry has been launched and is even considered mature by some standards. There is so much ahead and although William (Bill) Gates will no longer be leading the band at Microsoft, he will be watching cheering