THE STORY OF BILL GATES
Biography of
Bill Gates
Bill Gates is a co-founder of Microsoft. He was born on 28 October, 1955 in Seattle, Washington, United States.
His father's name was William Henry Gates Sr. and his mother's name was Mary Maxwell Gates. His father was a prominent lawyer and his mother was a school teacher.
He studied at the lakeside school where he developed an interest in computing. He was just 13 when he wrote his first software program on the school's computer and by the time he was in high school along with some of his friends who had computerized their school's payroll system.
His future collaborator Paul Allen, was a senior at Lakeside, Gates teamed up with Allen to form a venture called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor. He graduated from high school in 1973.
He was a National Merit Scholar and scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT. He enrolled at Harvard college later the same year.
As a college student he spent a lot of time on the computers though he was not much interested in studying other subjects.
His friend Allen suggested that Bill drop out of college to start a business.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen collaborated to find Microsoft in 1975.
In the beginning they adapted BASIC, a popular programming language for use on micro-computers. It proved to be a success and they continued to develop programming language software for various systems.
In 1980, the duo was approached by International Business Machine (IBM) with a proposal that Microsoft will write the BASIC interpreter for IBM's upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC. Microsoft created the PC DOS operating system which they delivered to IBM in exchange for a one - time fee of $ 50, 000.
Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS. In August of the following year, the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2.
Over the following years Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market acquiring over 90% market share. The company then saw the phenomenal financial success and being the company's largest individual shareholder, Bill Gates amassed a great fortune.
Microsoft introduced Microsoft Office in 1989. The package integrated several applications like Microsoft Word and Excel into one system that was compatible with all Microsoft products.
The success of MS Office gave Microsoft a virtual monopoly on operating systems for PC.
Bill Gates met Melinda French, a young woman working at Microsoft, in 1989.
In 1990, Windows 95 was released setting new standards and features for operating system. This version of Windows has been the backbone of all future releases from Windows 2000 to the latest version Windows 10.
Windows CE operating system platform and the Microsoft network were among the innovative solutions developed during this time.
Gates married Melinda French on a golf course on the Hawaiian island of Lanai on January 1, 1994 when he was 38 and she was 29. They have 3 children.
In January, 2000, Gates stepped down as Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft though he retained his position as chairman. He created the new position of Chief Software Architect for himself.
Over the next few years he gradually transferred his duties to others at Microsoft and started spending more time in philanthropic works.
He stepped down as chairman of Microsoft in February 2014, and currently serves as technology advisor to support CEO Satya Nadella.
In 2015, along with his wife Melinda, received the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian reward for their social work in the country.
In 2016, President Barack Obama honored Gates and his wife Melinda with the Presidential medal of freedom for their philanthropic efforts.
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