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Bill Gates's Road to Success

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Bill Gates's Road to Success
Introduction
Bill Gates is a well-known leader in the business world. His company’s inventions impacted the business world and changed the market. Bill Gates had a vision of what other executives only dream about. His values and strategies have managed to keep Microsoft on the edge of technology. Still, many questions have risen about Bill’s strategies on whether or not his harsh marketing depicts a monopolistic nature or is simply a result of becoming the leader of the technology industry.

Bill’s inventions that changed the business world
Bill Gates and his Harvard pal, Paul Allen, became inspired by seeing the first MITS Altair 8800, which was on the cover of Popular Electronics in 1975 (Gates, 2007). Bill and Paul wrote their version of the existing BASIC programming language for the Altair (McCraw, 2000). Since they realized that they would have to move quickly, they marketed their programming language to the firm who made Altair, MITS. During this time, Paul Allen joined MITS and when the company failed to prosper, he joined as a partner with Gates at what became known as Microsoft (Gates, 2007).
Microsoft was gaining market share in the U.S., but its biggest break came from Japan. Bill knew back then that the global impact of the pc industry would be an important part of Microsoft and decided that he couldn’t do this all on his own. So, in 1980, he enlisted the help of another Harvard pal, Steve Ballmer (Gates, 1995). It was also during this period, that Microsoft reorganized into a private corporation with Gates as President/CEO and Paul as Executive Vice President (Gates, 2007).

In the earlier days of Microsoft, the strategy was to buy software licenses for the computers they sold and then re-sell the licenses with the software to other companies, such as Radio Shack (Gates, 1995). Microsoft would then receive a royalty generated from such sales. This was done to offset their low sales from those who stole the software and sold it



References: Drucker, P. (1999). Management Challenges in the 21st Century. Harper Collins. Gates, B. (1995). The Road Ahead (p. 286). New York: Viking. Gates, B. (2007, February 23). How to Keep America Competitive. Retrieved October 7, 2007 from The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/ar2007022301697.html. Greene, J., Hamm, S., Brady, D., & Der Hovanesian, M. (2005, September 26). Troubling Exits at Microsoft. Retrieved October 20, 2007 from Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_39/b3952001.htm. Key Events In Microsoft History. (n.d.). Retrieved October 20, 2007 from Microsoft Visitor Center Student Information: http://www.microsoft.com/about/companyinformation/visitorcenter/student.mspx. Krames, J. A. (2003). What the best CEO 's know: 7 exceptional leaders and their lessons for transforming any business. (p. 250). New York: McGraw-Hill. Markoff, J. (2004, March 24). Newly released documents shed light on Microsoft tactics. Retrieved October 20, 2007 from Common Dreams NewsCenter: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0324-02.htm. McCraw, T. K. (2000). American Business, 1920-2000: How It Worked. Wheeling: Harlan Davidson. Net MBA (n.d.). Retrieved September 21, 2007 from http://www.netmba.com. Stross, R. E. (1996). The Microsoft Way: The real story of how the company outstmarts its competition. (p. 318). Reading: Addison-Wesley Publication Co.

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