Bill Gates definitely is a kind and generous person. He and his wife have set up some nice 'helper' type funds.
Bill Gates is also a very abrupt and powerful business man.
When IBM started their computer business they asked Gates to help them handle the operating system and help set up files of usable software. At first that is the way things went, but after 3 or 4 years MS started to do things their way and not the way IBM preferred, so a split began.
It was not long till MS had pretty much driven IBM out of the PC market with system software mergers at system build vendors. In fact that move had pretty much stopped all software designers away from the major markets where MS now was the only product the vendors building computers for new sales was installing.
Also another method MS used was buying out many software operations to replace his own clumsy software releases. He bought some to replace rather crude MS releases already on the market. He also bought many similar products to some he already owned or intended to release, and then the purchased names disappeared while the best parts became MS products. And competition was reduced.
In this way Gates managed to eliminate competition in any way he could. IBM and many others then just faded out of the software and even the computer markets.
So on a peoples basis Bill Gates is pretty kind. On a business basis, Bill Gates is pretty tough.
Here is a list of the many companies that MS bought out and either incorporated or closed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft
Another source for acquisitions as it is MS published, less information, but more complete........
http://www.microsoft.com/investor/Stock/AcquisitonHistory/All/default.aspx
Bill Gates is also a very abrupt and powerful business man.
When IBM started their computer business they asked Gates to help them handle the operating system and help set up files of usable software. At first that is the way things went, but after 3 or 4 years MS started to do things their way and not the way IBM preferred, so a split began.
It was not long till MS had pretty much driven IBM out of the PC market with system software mergers at system build vendors. In fact that move had pretty much stopped all software designers away from the major markets where MS now was the only product the vendors building computers for new sales was installing.
Also another method MS used was buying out many software operations to replace his own clumsy software releases. He bought some to replace rather crude MS releases already on the market. He also bought many similar products to some he already owned or intended to release, and then the purchased names disappeared while the best parts became MS products. And competition was reduced.
In this way Gates managed to eliminate competition in any way he could. IBM and many others then just faded out of the software and even the computer markets.
So on a peoples basis Bill Gates is pretty kind. On a business basis, Bill Gates is pretty tough.
Here is a list of the many companies that MS bought out and either incorporated or closed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Microsoft
Another source for acquisitions as it is MS published, less information, but more complete........
http://www.microsoft.com/investor/Stock/AcquisitonHistory/All/default.aspx