Secret of Bill Gates Success ..??

It says that there are thousands of people who are more hardworking and brillient but ultimately "Destiny" is the supreme force.

What are the factors lying behind the success of Bill Gates ?

He is having 12 % stack in Microsoft.The partnership for
12 % is really something.What makes him deserve this ?

Rushi Shroff           Rushi@emqube.com
"Life is beautiful."

my opinion... he doesn't deserve it.

The only reason he got where he is is that he was in the right place at the right time. He made some risky decisions that paid off. He managed to get contracts with key players in the market so that windows was made the standard OS, and then got so big that the little guys now who have superior OSs can't get their foot in the door. BEOS is a good example. Great OS, but the management didn't even try to compete.

From what I've read, it seems like there is a good possibility that code has even been placed into the OS that will make other software unable to work as efficiently. Lotus apparently is supposed to be able to read ms office formats, but can't get the same response time.

Microsoft releases several versions of a program before its really ready to market, then sell upgrades for people to upgrade to the latest version. If a person buys window95 and upgrades to 98 the to 98SE and something messes up, then that's 3 times the work, so they might go out and get a 98SE full cd to save installing 3 cds to get the same thing. Now microsoft has sold 4x the software and the user has 3 cds that will never be used again. MS releases winME and the user upgrades thinking it'll be better just to find out that win2K would do a better job at meeting their needs. another useless cd sitting around. Now XP comes along with advertising saying it's the best product. It's so easy to use, etc, etc, etc. so a user goes out and buys that. (apply same concepts for MS Office)

With most of the computer users focused on MS products companies either have to shell out for multiple copies for their computers or buy a site licence. The users don't want to learn another OS so to get the most out of the server, the company needs to run a winnt or win2k server...

Software developers need to write software that will run on the OS that is used by the masses, which means they need compilers that generated windows compatible code... Enter VB, VC++, VJ++ all ms products...

Now with so many people running MS products you need technicians that can support them, which has led to MSCE and other such certifications. People pay thousands of dollars to get these to be able to prove they know what they are doing, more money going to MS.

My opinion is that Big Brothe.. I mean Bill deserves credit for being ahead of his time, and a great marketer for his products, but now he has gotten too big for his britches. It's time for something to stir up the market to blaze a trail for the next generation. If we don't do something to cut him down to size he will continue to force his way into all sectors of life.

 I don't want my toaster to use a MS operating system, and I'd be happy to be able to completely remove the windows virus from my life, but I'm forced to work with the products that the my clients rely on. I can't go into a company and tell them to switch to linux and run openoffice they'll just roll their eyeballs and continue the way they are because it'll require too much time  to retrain their staff to use a new setup (even after pointing out how much money could be saved by not needing to buy all the M$ products)

One last time, this is mostly a matter of opinion. Feel free to debate it, but it's not likely that you will change my opinion. I have no love for bill or microsoft. I do respect that bill managed to take his company where no company has gone before, but I disagree with the methods that have allowed him to corner the market. If Levis jeans were to force their way to the top so that LA BLUE, SGT Pepper,etc loose their hold and I have to get my jeans from only the smallest stores, where I can't get the hemmed for me, I'd be ticked off about that in the same way... well at least I wouldn't have to stare at my jeans all day but the best comparison I could think of at the time...

Whether you love or hate MS's products and or practices is immaterial to this question.  Bill deserves whatever percentage he owns because he and Paul Allen founded the company and that's the portion he has decided to keep.

Jeff
Working in IT is like trying to commit suicide with a very small hammer ....

the question finished off with "What makes him deserve this?"

I agree that love/hate for the products can't justify the answer, however the practices of the company DO factor in. Bill as head of M$ is the one who gives the go ahead or hold for any major decision, which makes it his ethics at play.

Asking if he deserves it is a wide open question. Legally sure he holds the stocks so he is entitled to what it pays him. Ethically there are a lot of shady issues clouding the waters. My point was that I don't believe that he is ethicaly deserving of his billion.

You left out the fact that while the company products might be mediocre, they are an incredible marketing machine.  If anything got them where there are today it is...

1. Outstanding marketing
2. Really, really, dumb competitors.

Over the years there have been so many examples of this (IBM, Lotus, Apple, etc) that there isn't enough space to do it all justice.

But, and I hate to say this, he didn't just earn what he has, we all gave it to him.  And continue to do so.  How many use non-MS products at home?

I still belive that it was more luck than anything that got him the deals so that he could get his foot into the door of almost every house in the world.

No marketing strategy will work for the salesman if you customer is able to slam the door in his face. IBM shipping dos then windows on all their machines was this foot in the door.

I'll quickly agree on the dumb competitors (refrence BEOS in first paragraph of my first post...), however now that there are good alternatives, most of the users have already been conditioned to believe that MS is the only choice.

I for one use mostly non-MS products (grudingly switch back when a client needs a program in VB modified, or an ASP script developed) But this question can also be switched around to: How many non-MS products have been taken over by MS and either converted into a MS product or shut down? Also how many people use IE over netscape or other browsers due to IE being so heavily integrated into window that they can't excape it anyway?

What many people overlook is, Bill Gates had a factor that many startup businesses DO NOT have, MONEY!  Bill Gates had money long before Microsoft, so it was much easier for him to finance a business.  Other companies have to have a product to gain financial backing, whereas he had money to develop a product.

Does he deserve a 12% stake.  Well, Bill Gates has approximately 640,000,000 shares.  Adjusted for splits the IPO would be approx. 14 cents a share.  That represents a $90,000,000 investment that has paid of and is now worth billions of dollars.  Is he to fault for this?

Actually, he really didn't have money at that time.  As I understand it, they needed Paul Allen to mortgage a home in order to purchase what is now called, "DOS", for about $50,000.  So, what other money are you referring to?

Gary
gwinn7

Read the first part of this website:

http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/

It is pretty interesting.  This is the wealth I was referring to.

I completely agree with garwain. It was pure luck and nothing else. I am still getting chewed out by clients when I tell them that linux does about the same thing on it's own scael and costs less.(they now even have a desktop OS package, MSNBC)

Dear sheronne ,
really good link.Thanks for that.

Rushi Shroff           Rushi@emqube.com
"Life is beautiful."

There are 2 reasons behind the monolith that is Bill Gates:
- He takes gambles
- He is utterly ruthless

The big gamble he took was when he contracted with IBM without an operating system to put on the PC's they were going to roll out. He then acquired (not wrote, acquired) DOS and the rest is history.

He is ruthless in that anyone who tries to compete better get their attorney involved first, or have such an alternative business plan (a la Linux) that it just infuriates the crap out of him that he can't go up against it.  You can't go up against MS with their own business model and win.  You also can't battle him legally.  You'll be dead before any verdict with meaning is rendered.

The manner in which Bill Gates has approached business is nothing new.  It is infact a very old business plan, To be the Largest and Most Powerful Player in the market.  Some of the most powerful men in US history approached business in the same manner.  These men are now respected historical figures whose families are among the elite of the richest.  Men such as JP Morgan, John D. Rockefeller , Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie it was people like these that brought business to the level it is now.  Powerful Business men have always tried to find a way to keep as much business as possible with themselves. Does Bill Gates Deserve the stake he has in MS?  By all means.  He was willing to take a risk and by taking this risk he was able to do something many people wouldn't have believed possible.  

As for the people bitching about Microsoft and there products the answer is easy don't use or support them. But your clients will only use MS products? Then take a risk and find new clients who are more open to alternatives, or are linux or unix shops.  If your opposed to MS Business practices yet you still make a living off MS products then what does that say about your ethics?

"Shoot Me! Shoot Me NOW!!!"
                           - Daffy Duck

Like Henry Ford, Bill Gates was lucky to be in the right place at the right time.  And better than everyone else who happened to be there, a small sample of humanity.

Bill Gates was also lucky that IBM had been mauled by an anti-trust suit.  And therefore did not buy up MS-DOS, when he would have been quite happy to sell.

Interesting reading.....   many of you owe what you do to Bill Gates and what developed from what he and Paul started.  I started selling IBM pc's when they came out and made money.  No money that Bill Gates took money out of my pocket or food out of my kids' mouths.  In fact, to the contrary....   a few of you sound like you are part of the fast developing socialist groups here in the states.  Stop your whining, thank God and Bill Gates for your jobs and go and convince people to use linux.....  but don't complain when the hoards don't follow you immediately.  Viva capitalism, nothing else works as it does.  

stop your whining? bill gates sucks billions of dollars out of people who dont know any better. btw, i agree, the only reason gates got to where he is is because of gambles, and he was a lucky gambler.

btw, that think about thanking god was stupid. some of us dont follow religion with a one and only god. can you prove god exists let alone control our lives? anyway, i dont want to start discussing religion so ill leave that matter alone now.

Breadcrust (aka J@red)

Web - http://www.bcwebnet.tk
E-mail - net-head@softhome.net
Linux Reg. Number - 307180 (http://counter.li.org)

Bill Gates succeedes because he intentionally sells things at below cost price, to put rivals out of business.  Sometimes he gives them away, as with internet browsers and other stuff that was 'bundled' with Windows.

It's a simple fact that big rich corporations do not have to play by the official rules of capitalism.  

GwydionM,

It may be true that Internet Explorer/Outlook express and other applications such as Movie maker are given away, and that MS definitely makes a profit on other products such as Office and Windows operating systems, but how does this differ from say open source or free software which must cost money to develop, but is given away for free because the developers choose to, or non MS commercial software sold at a profit such as products from Adobe, Macromedia or Lotus/IBM, to name but a few. They can set the prices for their products to what the market will bear.

The big hole in this argument I can hear you saying is it's true that those companies don't develop the operating system that the software runs as well, so for another analogy try this:

I don't know much about Macs and haven't used them for ages, but have heard that Apple make and market a lot of their own software, which used to be sold under the Claris brand.
How is this different to the MS stranglehold? Nobody requires you to run ClarisWorks or MacWrite (sorry if these products are no longer produced, as I said it's a while since I've used them). If anything, it's worse, because Apple make the hardware, if you had to have a Microsoft PC to run Microsoft IE and Office on Microsoft Windows then the stranglehold would be even worse.

John

Interesting comments from all of you. Bill Gates has only 24 hours in his day too! He puts his pants on one leg at a time just as we do. The most that I know about him came from a movie called "Pirates of Silicone Valley". Least we not forget that he and Melinda are also the top philanthropist in the world ? Microsoft has always been committed to helping the less fortunate. If you search really deep into the microsoft site, you will see that he has certainly justified his lifestyle in todays technological world. I admire the man, but never plan to envy his way. Figure it out !

gabbosgold
 

I think the Secret of BillGates success is not a secret.
1. Know well how and what to do with money
2. Be smart
3. Hard work
4. Be organized
5. Don't trust in luck
6. Be a bit aggressive
7. Have powerful relationship
8. ....

Ion Filipski

jrbarnett (

Microsoft gives away the basics and then charges as much as it wishes for the fancy stuff.  It also has the potential for control.  

Apple Macs have kept control of hardware and some software, a lot of it is Microsoft.  But it's their own product and used to exist among many alternatives.  Whereas Microsoft have pushed competitors right out of the market.

This post should've ended at garwain's comment


The only reason he got where he is is that he was in the right place at the right time.

The only reason he got where he is is that he was in the right place at the right time.

Speaking as someone who was around and in computers, when Bill Gates was 17, living on Pizza and developing Basic for the Commadore, I gotta admit ... there were a h*** of a lot of people who were in much the same place at much the same time. To attribute his success to the business equivalent of winning the lottery (i.e. just blind, dumb luck) has to be naive in the extreme.

I don't think that being "lucky" means "you don't deserve it.".  Many people would say the Marlins were lucky to get to, let alone, WIN the World Series.  That doesn't mean they don't deserve it.

Q: Secret of Bill Gates Success ..??
A: 10% Luck, 45% Technical Knowledge, 45% Good Businessman

Many people have a lot of the above, but very rarely its in that combination.

(IMHO!)

Steve.

When I was little IBM had virtually the whole market.
You have to ask how they managed to lose it and MS gained and retained it (although not in the same area but IBM were in a position to control everything).

Maybe Bill was lucky that no one has been around with the ability or determination to compete at the key times but that's as far as the luck goes.

======================================
Cursors are useful if you don't know sql.
DTS can be used in a similar way.
Beer is not cold and it isn't fizzy.

You don't suppose the way the US Government persued them as a monopoly had anything to do with it?  And if I'm not mistaken they were forced to separate some departments because of this, but it's been awhile since I really read anything useful about it.

I believe that IBM fell off the top of the mountain because they thought that "computer" meant "mainframe". When the desktop / client/server revolution hit, IBM dismissed the whole thing as the computer equivalent of hula hoops (remember those?). They gave away the IBM PC Architecture by making it public domain and they gave away the OS to Bill Gates. They then spent several crucial years pretending that everyone would wise up and realize that a dumb terminal hooked to some big iron from IBM was the only "real computing." By the time that it became apparent that the desktop environment wasn't just a passing fad, IBM was already well behind the Microsofts, HPs, Compaqs, etc., and they never did catch up.

Interesting, I'm going to stick with a 13 year DOJ lawsuit, and a mandate to separate divisions as being the reason they lost alot of their marketshare.  That combined with a continually dropping cost of entry into the market allowing the natural forces of captialism to bring in competition.

73% market share is not necessarily something maintainable, especially not in a (arguably) disposable goods market.

I'm sure that the lawsuits didn't help but look at the history of such anti-trust stuff.

The government broke up Standard Oil and the spin-offs (Exxon, Chevron and others) became individually larger than Standard Oil ever was.

Similarly, Ma Bell was never as large as Bell South (one of the spin offs) 10 years after the breakup.

A breakup doesn't necessarily mean that one big success is converted to several smaller failures.

I agree 73% is tough to maintain ... and Microsoft's 90+% in some areas even tougher. I also agree that IBM got bled out by the 13-year DOJ action ... even though they eventually got a favorable judgement. Notice though that their mainframe technology remained very strong during all that. What didn't remain strong was the sales because everyone was doing desktops / networks, etc. instead while Big Blue was still hung up on "real computers start at $1,000,000".

I really do not see why people are so against Bill Gates and Microsoft in general.

Sure their software has its fair share of bugs and security issue, however I would say that it has no more problems than any other system the same size. There are just more people using it, you just cannot account for how each different person will use your software.

I also believe that some sections of the Anti-Trust judgement made against Microsoft should have been illegal to impose in themselves. Who are the Judicial Service in USA to decide that a) Microsoft Cannot Bundle a free Browser in it's O/s b) That Microsoft cannot develop it's office suite in conjunction with the O/s, and that the company should be split into seperate companies to stop this. There are also other things that I disagree with but do not want to preach on.

I think that Bill Gates is a man who used his inteligence to make some astute business decisions and along with his friends and employees has continued to develop the premier O/s and Office products available.

If a product does not do what you want it to do then people WILL NOT buy it, no matter what market share you have.

Greg Palmer

----------------------------------------
Any feed back is appreciated.

At last someone who shares my view and realises that MS Software isn't any worse that the other stuff out there!

Steve.

Steve.

Okay, so let me get this right...

Bill Gates is smart, successful, and rich...and we're all jealous?

If it wasn't Gates, it would've been someone else.  We could be cussing out Steve Jobs right now if it were the other way around.  

Given there is some things I don't like about MS products, but for a typical user, it's a godsend.  And for me, most of my work (if not all) is done on MS products.  If it weren't for Bill, I'd probably still be an Admin Asst.

We are talking about IBMs fault. They want to build a new OS and they call BILL GATES (unfortunatly). He had one of the best idea ever and he change PCs future he propose to IBM to sell the PCs including a user-friendly OS. I am 100% sur that he did not know much for computer but he is a great computer Manager and i am congratulating him... but only for that.
Computers are still too dificult for my mother!!! Beleave me that there is a huge market in that ages .

There are spiritual laws at work here. Bill Gates, being from a Jewish faith has a serious blessing by default on his life. If one is spiritually aware and know the spiritual and Biblical laws that governs one's life then we will see and understand how and why we can be so successful. It is as simple as that. Abraham had other sons than Isaac. He also had Ishmael and a few more. God made a covenant with all these sons and believe it or not, that covenant still stands today. I do believe that this, together with the spiritual laws at work here, is the main reason for such awesome wealth and success.

Quite as a bulldozer mate!

or maybe it's that lucky rabbits foot that he always carries with him

Two strings walk into a bar. The first string says to the bartender: 'Bartender, I'll have a beer. u.5n$x5t?*&4ru!2[sACC~ErJ'. The second string says: 'Pardon my friend, he isn't NULL terminated'.

AM I the only old guy that reads this????????????

IBM, in October of 1980, was on the hunt for an OS for their new "PC" yet to be introduced, sent a team to talk to MS about getting an OS for them to use.  Bill Gates and Paul Allen had started Microsoft to market BASIC.  They actually had no OS and were not initially interested in writing an OS and Bill recommended that they seek out Gary Kildall, who had CP/M-86, (Gary and Dorthy Kildall were starting up Digital Research) of Digital Research in Calif.  The team went to DR and there were some problems, Gary was not there and they met with Dorthy.....anyway they traveled back to MS and again wanted to know if they could interest MS in writing an OS.  Bill and Paul agreed to provide an OS.

 Microsoft had no 8086 real operating system to sell, but quickly made a deal to license "Seattle Computer Products'" 86-DOS operating system, which had been written by Tim Paterson for use on that company's line of 8086, S100 bus micros. 86-DOS (also called QDOS, for Quick and Dirty Operating System) had been written as a 16-bit version of CP/M, since Digital Research was showing no hurry in introducing CP/M-86. Paterson's DOS 1.0 was approximately 4000 lines of assembler source.

This code was polished up by MS and Petrson and presented to IBM for evaluation. IBM found itself left with Microsoft's offering of "Microsoft Disk Operating System 1.0". An agreement was reached between the two, and IBM agreed to accept 86-DOS as the operating system for their new PC (Bill also licensed BASIC). Microsoft purchased full rights to 86-DOS in July 1981 for a rumored, $50,000.00, and well as you know today the rest is history.

Most of this is from a PBS story about GEEKS and from actual interview statements made by Gates and a little from my failing memory.

So in summation, while MS (Gates) tried to steer IBM in the right direction once, he did not pass this up the second time and as a result of Corp leanings toward IBM as substantial, the PC began appearing on desk tops. The original PC actually was not able to accomplish much, and sales were meager even with IBM Marketing behind them. It wasn't until a killer application appeared that the need for a PC was even thought of as something that could provide any added value.  If you have not guessed what that killer application was yet ........remember LOTUS 123, yes this automated spreadsheet application allowed the many individuals in companies to analyze data at will (these tasks were already accomplished manually with ???paper and pen) The accountants, engineers, scientists, and many other diciplines all began to be able to enter data and move it around at will and then they could leave their french curves in their desks as they could plot and graph the same data.
It was this explosion in use that catalpulted the sales of the PC and along with each PC a copy of "IBM/MS DOS". I guess it is more or less a thing of being in the right place at the right time...luck???  this was only the basis/means for MicroSoft to build upon.

rvnguy

rvnguy :

Of course you're not the only one to know this. It's old hat as far as us geezers are concerned.
But it is inevitable that the number of people having witnessed the beginning of the PC era is going to be supplanted by hoards of youngsters whose biggest concern is not going to be knowing where DOS came from - most people who knew what DOS stands for have probably forgotten, and the others only know Windows or some other GUI.

Back on topic : my opinion is that there is no secret. His Billness got a lucky break and was there when the time was right. However, I do think that his lucky start was followed by a lot of hard work and a lot more stress. The dot-com bubble has showed us what luck without work brings, and Microsoft is a hard-hitting, ruthless, 800-pound gorilla in any market it cares to touch. This is not the behavior of some wide-eyed Internet junky, it is the result of years of fighting tooth and nail to preserve the existing market share and expand it.
Microsoft went up against the likes of Lotus 1-2-3, Ashton Tate's DBase III and others, and it ran them to the ground. We may disagree with the methods and with the result, but the fact is that if Microsoft started out with a golden spoon, it did not lay back and expect the dough to keep rolling. It stood up and started whacking all the other kids with said spoon, until it was the only kid left.
Competition and capitalism in their bare, brutal form. With all the backhandedand underhanded dealings you can care to dream of, supported by a marketing department second only to its legal department. Oh, and a transatlantic boatload of top-level programmers.
No secret, but a lot of sweat and blood.
And if you think any Fortune 500 company is different, well, keep dreaming.

Pascal.

I guess I can be considered old. I worked in a computer store and we sold the IBM when it first appeared and just for the record Lotus 1-2-3 was not the spreadsheet that came out with it. It was an earlier product called visi-calc.  Lotus was the next generation.

Alan
Senility at its finest

When the much cleverer ( Larry ? ) of CP/M went flying kites in order to play hard to get to raise his price when IBM came wooing him for his OS rights, BG ran around, found another disk operating system ( QDOS ) for sale, bought it ( on credit ? ), patched it as best as he could ( despite which IBM enigneers found another 300 bugs in it after acceptance - which is why IBM has a rights on it - PC-DOS ),and made himself available to IBM. He's a good man - thats only one factor though.

Hey It is great that thee are others of past generations.

bosk00:  You are correct about visi-calc I was in general refering to what the big corps adopted. There were also several "PC's" out before the "IBM PC" (Altair, Lisa, TRS-80, DEC Rainbow, etc) but of these it took "IBM" to capture the Corp world.

Bobby2004:  Wow first time I have heard the Kite story. As a programmer lets give the upstart MS fair due; the original MS DOS 1.0 was written prior to the physical IBM being available or at least concurrent development.  All that was definitely known is that it would be a /86 Intel proc.  No machine actual machine to debug on.  So 300 bugs in several thousand lines of assembler code????not too bad. Could have been better with a test machine or another Qtr for MS to develop but alas Marketing would not allow that.