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I respect Bill Gates

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I am serious.

The man has done wonders for this world. He is the epitome of the 'capitalist'. I get really upset when people belittle him and his accomplishments. I am finding myself defending him more and more on an almost daily basis.


If I could meet one person (alive), it would without a doubt be him.
 
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Bill Gates is undoubtely a busniess phenomenon and a textbook example of a successful businessman.

And I personally have no grudges or hates against Microsoft or Bill Gates, I just prefer a different product for my personal use.
 
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I am serious.

The man has done wonders for this world. He is the epitome of the 'capitalist'. I get really upset when people belittle him and his accomplishments. I am finding myself defending him more and more on an almost daily basis.


If I could meet one person (alive), it would without a doubt be him.

If you consider dirty dealing, illegal business practices, strong arming the competition mafia style, underhanded deals, downright lying, cheating and stealing to be the epitome of capitalism, then you are correct.

I belittle his accomplishments because they were at the expense of many others selling superior products by illegal practices and other ethically questionable business tactics for years unchecked. I belittle his accomplishments because he and his company are the epitome of what gives capitalism a bad name around the world. I belittle his accomplishments because they came at the cost of the average Joe computer user and the substandard twaddle that Microsoft foisted on the general public for years and continues to do so today. I belittle his accomplishments just as I belittle those of Standard Oil 100 years ago and AT&T 50 years ago. I belittle him for continued unethical (at least) and strong arm business tactics against corporations, computer makers and the average PC user. I belittle his accomplishments because he and the company he founded are not worth the praise heaped upon them by the industry sheep in the press. I belittle his accomplishments because he set the bar disgustingly low and caused the public to expect substandard performance when they had the right to expect what they paid for. I belittle him because he sacrificed quantity for quality with his products. I belittle him because he and the company he founded deserve nothing less than my contempt for their wholesale greed. I belittle him because he has earned it.
 
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I am not entirely sure all the blame can be placed on Bill Gates. It is Steve Ballmer who I think is the idiotic moronic one. Bill Gates just doesn't seem that bothered anymore with Microsoft and seems to be just counting the days down until he retirers.

Let us remember that this is a man who has given away over half of his wealth to good causes. Steve Jobs isn't no spring chicken either. Microsoft have definitely done something right and it is only recently Apple is realising that instead of being totally anti-Microsoft they are playing them at their own game such as letting Mac users run Windows.
 
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I am not entirely sure all the blame can be placed on Bill Gates. It is Steve Ballmer who I think is the idiotic moronic one. Bill Gates just doesn't seem that bothered anymore with Microsoft and seems to be just counting the days down until he retirers.

Let us remember that this is a man who has given away over half of his wealth to good causes. Steve Jobs isn't no spring chicken either. Microsoft have definitely done something right and it is only recently Apple is realising that instead of being totally anti-Microsoft they are playing them at their own game such as letting Mac users run Windows.

Funny, I thought this was about Bill Gates, why do you feel the need to bring Apple into it? Did I make any comparisons between he two? Did I say anything about Apple at all? Funny how the MS apologists have to jump on the anti-Apple bandwagon whenever they feel threatened.

If you think that him giving away money he could never possibly use and will never miss makes up for his past actions you are extremely naive. Smoke and mirrors might fool some, but not many.


baggss rep page said:
Back up your opinions about gates with facts.

Thanks for the negative rep too, I don't need to back any of it, a simple google search on any of the points I raised will yield lots of results.
 
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Funny, I thought this was about Bill Gates, why do you feel the need to bring Apple into it? Did I make any comparisons between he two? Did I say anything about Apple at all? Funny how the MS apologists have to jump on the anti-Apple bandwagon whenever they feel threatened.

If you think that him giving away money he could never possibly use and will never miss makes up for his past actions you are extremely naive. Smoke and mirrors might fool some, but not many.

While you didn't actually say it that is probably what you are implying and why you are posting on a Mac forum. You go on like Bill Gates is a bad man but there are loads of successful capatilists who have done all of the above and in some cases worse. You place all this on Bill Gates' shoulders like it is 100% his fault...I have no idea how much input Bill Gates has in the running of the business and when you see his shy reserved personality it is very hard to believe that Bill Gates wanted Microsoft to become like this or whether people like Steve Ballmer drove Microsoft to all of the above.

I compared Apple and Microsoft or Steve Jobs and Bill Gates merely because there has been a long rivalry there. You can call it smokes and mirrors but Steve Jobs has more than enough money, I read somewhere he is worth something like $5bn, giving away $2.5bn wouldn't harm him, but he doesn't because that is all part of the American capatilist system, the richer getting richer and the poorer getting poorer.
 
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If you consider dirty dealing, illegal business practices, strong arming the competition mafia style, underhanded deals, downright lying, cheating and stealing to be the epitome of capitalism, then you are correct.

Business is business. And we also need to understand that Microsoft pushed forward technologies into our lives that created new situations for which no legislation was clear enough. The Windows Media Player issue in Europe is a good example of this.

As long as he didn't break the law, you can't do much. Copying Mac OS X is hardly something you have to hate him for. Apple has "copied" enough themselves.

This whole "copying" thing is like saying that if Cancer was cured, only one guy were allowed to make the medicine (which is a different story altogether, but you get the analogy).
 
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I am serious.

The man has done wonders for this world. He is the epitome of the 'capitalist'. I get really upset when people belittle him and his accomplishments. I am finding myself defending him more and more on an almost daily basis.


If I could meet one person (alive), it would without a doubt be him.
I also genuinely respect Mr Gates. I like to poke fun at him and his company but I do respect him as a business man.

Bill Gates is undoubtely a busniess phenomenon and a textbook example of a successful businessman.

And I personally have no grudges or hates against Microsoft or Bill Gates, I just prefer a different product for my personal use.
Well said.

If you think that him giving away money he could never possibly use and will never miss makes up for his past actions you are extremely naive. Smoke and mirrors might fool some, but not many.
That's a little harsh baggss. People are entitled to their opinion but I do think that statement was a little harsh. First off I agree from a PR stand-point - giving away huge sums of money is a good way of self promotion. Secondly; just because he doesn't need the money and could never spend it, is not a good justification for belittling (maybe too strong a word) this act of charity. Yes I know that you refer to it as smoke and mirrors and I think to an extent you are very likely correct - but nothing stopped Gates from keeping that money in his bank account - nothing stopped him from leaving it to his family - he chose to give that money away - enough money to really make a difference.

Bill Gates is a very intelligent person with a keen sense of business. I think some of his tactics have been underhand but I also think that he's made some excellent business moves and I for one think he's quite a charitable person and is very deserving of my respect.

I also think that most other companies wouldn't think twice about stepping on some smaller companies if they were in a position to do so - this includes the companies that have had the strong-arm treatment from MS in the past.
 
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Another perspective here folks. I generally agree with baggss that Microsoft has repeatedly has engaged in (and still does) odious business practices.

Without making any moral judgements on this however, I would suggest that the world as a whole has benefited from it. Think back to the period when PCs were first introduced. Apple, Commodore, IBM, Microsoft, Radio Shack, EVERYBODY had a computer design. They were all different and they were all incompatible. Progress was VERY slow in software and hardware development because there was no clear "path to the money". If you were a company wanting to build products for this market, it was "place your bets" time. You had to guess where the largest segment of the market would lie, wherein of course would be your potential customers.

The Windows/Intel (Wintel) jaugernaut changed that. It established a clear front runner, for better or worse, and by less than ethical methods IMHO. Irrespective of that though, it established a clear winner, and a clear "path to the money" for vendors. Software and hardware exploded.

A stable platform to build for, and a huge and largely captive audience brought us HUGE advances in a dizzingly short period of time. Processors, memory, hard disk, graphics card, modems (yes, modems!), and so on all advanced at breakneck pace, because there was a willing market there to sell to, and money to be made. This is what is so great about free enterprise - if there is a buck to made, someone will find a way to make it.

Ditto for software. Office software, photo(shop) software, communications software, gaming software... all of it rode the bleeding edge of the hardware curve, bringing us more and more capability, and generally enriching our lives.

We sit here today on our Macs with kick a-s-s grapics cards and GBs of RAM, running mountains of programs on multiple GHz machines... and I honestly believe we have Bill Gates and Wintel to thank for it.

I don't LIKE them, I don't AGREE with how they accomplished these results, but I *do* believe that the stability they brought to the platform area has gotten us to where we are today.

Where do we go from here? As debated in another thread, the Web is being positioned as the next platform. Desktop computers will be interface devices that provide implementations of a common "virtual machine" such as Java or .Net/Mono... computer diversification can now occur with impunity - the web is becoming the next stable, and thus enabling, platform.

With that, I will take off my philosopher's robes and put away my crystal ball. I have just always felt the irony of intensely disliking Microsoft and Bill Gates and yet paradoxically, and simultaneously, feeling some degree of gratitude to them.
 
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I must be doing something right, I've gotten 2 consecutive negative feedback for this thread already!
cool.gif


Business is business. And we also need to understand that Microsoft pushed forward technologies into our lives that created new situations for which no legislation was clear enough. The Windows Media Player issue in Europe is a good example of this.

As long as he didn't break the law, you can't do much. Copying Mac OS X is hardly something you have to hate him for. Apple has "copied" enough themselves.

This whole "copying" thing is like saying that if Cancer was cured, only one guy were allowed to make the medicine (which is a different story altogether, but you get the analogy).

Yes, business is business, but that is not a reason nor a license to actively engage in illegal business practices or even unethical ones. The US DOJ, the EU and the South Korean government have determined that to some extent MS has done wrong, and in some cases is still doing wrong. It has been proven that MS engaged in illegal activities and that Bill gates knew about them. I'm not claiming here that MS stole or copied anything from anybody. I'm arguing that the ruthlessly and illegally crushed competitors that stood in their way simply because they could. Bill deserves no respect from me for engaging in illegal business tactics.

While you didn't actually say it that is probably what you are implying and why you are posting on a Mac forum. You go on like Bill Gates is a bad man but there are loads of successful capatilists who have done all of the above and in some cases worse. You place all this on Bill Gates' shoulders like it is 100% his fault...I have no idea how much input Bill Gates has in the running of the business and when you see his shy reserved personality it is very hard to believe that Bill Gates wanted Microsoft to become like this or whether people like Steve Ballmer drove Microsoft to all of the above.

I compared Apple and Microsoft or Steve Jobs and Bill Gates merely because there has been a long rivalry there. You can call it smokes and mirrors but Steve Jobs has more than enough money, I read somewhere he is worth something like $5bn, giving away $2.5bn wouldn't harm him, but he doesn't because that is all part of the American capatilist system, the richer getting richer and the poorer getting poorer.

Bill founded and ran the daily operations of the company until just a few years ago. The US and EU trials revealed that he knew nearly all of what was going on in the areas where the company was conducting illegal activity and continued to let it happen, in some cases personally authorizing it. Yes, there are other capitalist, but this thread is about Bill Gates, not them and bring Apple or Steve Jobs into it is merely an attempt to stray from the topic. Smoke and Mirrors. Bill is giving away money to try and improve his image, it appears to be fooling many here.

Another perspective here folks. I generally agree with baggss that Microsoft has repeatedly has engaged in (and still does) odious business practices.

Without making any moral judgements on this however, I would suggest that the world as a whole has benefited from it. Think back to the period when PCs were first introduced. Apple, Commodore, IBM, Microsoft, Radio Shack, EVERYBODY had a computer design. They were all different and they were all incompatible. Progress was VERY slow in software and hardware development because there was no clear "path to the money". If you were a company wanting to build products for this market, it was "place your bets" time. You had to guess where the largest segment of the market would lie, wherein of course would be your potential customers.

The Windows/Intel (Wintel) jaugernaut changed that. It established a clear front runner, for better or worse, and by less than ethical methods IMHO. Irrespective of that though, it established a clear winner, and a clear "path to the money" for vendors. Software and hardware exploded.

A stable platform to build for, and a huge and largely captive audience brought us HUGE advances in a dizzingly short period of time. Processors, memory, hard disk, graphics card, modems (yes, modems!), and so on all advanced at breakneck pace, because there was a willing market there to sell to, and money to be made. This is what is so great about free enterprise - if there is a buck to made, someone will find a way to make it.

Ditto for software. Office software, photo(shop) software, communications software, gaming software... all of it rode the bleeding edge of the hardware curve, bringing us more and more capability, and generally enriching our lives.

We sit here today on our Macs with kick a-s-s grapics cards and GBs of RAM, running mountains of programs on multiple GHz machines... and I honestly believe we have Bill Gates and Wintel to thank for it.

I don't LIKE them, I don't AGREE with how they accomplished these results, but I *do* believe that the stability they brought to the platform area has gotten us to where we are today.

Where do we go from here? As debated in another thread, the Web is being positioned as the next platform. Desktop computers will be interface devices that provide implementations of a common "virtual machine" such as Java or .Net/Mono... computer diversification can now occur with impunity - the web is becoming the next stable, and thus enabling, platform.

With that, I will take off my philosopher's robes and put away my crystal ball. I have just always felt the irony of intensely disliking Microsoft and Bill Gates and yet paradoxically, and simultaneously, feeling some degree of gratitude to them.

I don't disagree with any of that and MS and Windows clearly pushed the technology foreword, but the ends do not justify the means. If the platform and the company were truly as good as many seem to think, they would not have needed to engage in the activities that continue to land them in hot water around the world, and they would not continue to engage in massive FUD campaigns.

The stability they brought was based on illegal, or at best unethical, business practices. The stability came at the cost of innovation. Imagine where the industry and technology might be now if MS and Bill Gates had decided to truly partner with companies and foster new technologies instead of crushing them and killing new technologies because of their paranoia. Imagine where the industry and technology would be today if people didn't actively expect their systems to be hacked, infected or crash on a regular basis.

That's a little harsh baggss. People are entitled to their opinion but I do think that statement was a little harsh.

Bill Gates is a very intelligent person with a keen sense of business. I think some of his tactics have been underhand but I also think that he's made some excellent business moves and I for one think he's quite a charitable person and is very deserving of my respect.

I also think that most other companies wouldn't think twice about stepping on some smaller companies if they were in a position to do so - this includes the companies that have had the strong-arm treatment from MS in the past.

Yes it was harsh, and yes we are all entitled to our opinions, including me. You don't have to like it. If you consider unethical, at best, business practices to be a "keen business sense, then you too are naive. You can admire Bill Gates all you want, but your simply fooling yourself into thinking that he is a great man. He is, and was, nothing more than a ruthless businessman who was willing to engage in questionable activity to corner a new market by whatever means necessary at the detriment to whoever happened to get in his way. If that equals greatness, then you are correct.

I agree, other companies would gladly engage in activities such as this, many do. In the end though, if it's widespread enough and obvious enough they all pay a price. All the smoke and mirrors in the world can't hide the truth.

baggss Rep page said:
Absolutely inappropriate tone & reasoning

I don't care if you like my tone or reasoning. Both are perfectly acceptable regardless if you choose to agree or not.
 

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I kind of like what Jobs stated in an interview one time. "Microsoft has Earned their success (for the most part)" "But they just make a lot of 3rd rate products!!"

I have it all on Video as well as an Interview with Tim Patterson of SCP (Seattle Computer Products) who wrote his own OS. Then along came Microsoft's Paul Allen and bought it from Tim for $50k. Microsoft made a few changes and called it DOS.
 
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All other things (and there are a lot of them) aside, Microsoft did break the law. The company, under Bill Gates, was found in US federal court to have used its monopoly in operating systems to impede competitors in other markets.

It's one thing to say, "We're the biggest, buy our stuff." It's illegal to say, "We're the biggest, don't buy our competitor's stuff or we'll cut you off." Microsoft did the latter.

And again, there are many other examples of Microsoft bending or breaking laws all over the world.
 
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I don't have a problem with Bill Gates personally... I do think he's social retarded as mentioned in another thread...

For me though, he certainly would not be anywhere near the top of my list of living people I would like to meet..
 
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From a purely business perspective, Gates is a phenomenon. Time and time again, he has managed to take inferior products and out of date ideas and not only make them work, but utterly destroy the competition, which is something of an achievement even if you don't like it.

Having said that, as he's aged and matured, he has turned his money and attention to the Gates foundation which is an astonishing organization. Not simply because it has a huge some of cash backing it up, but because every dime spent is on long term, sustainable projects (rather than just slinging money at problems and hoping for the best). Many initiatives that other charities and non-profits ignore are benefiting, which I think has to be acknowledged.

As for Jobs, not sure why he was dragged in, but, there is no doubt in my mind, that he is a true visionary and has become successful realizing his vision, rather than being successful for successfulness's sake (which I think applies to Gates).

I always think this clip sums things up nicely (made before the 1997 Boston event).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upzKj-1HaKw

It's just as appropriate now as in 1996.
 
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From a purely business perspective, Gates is a phenomenon. Time and time again, he has managed to take inferior products and out of date ideas and not only make them work, but utterly destroy the competition, which is something of an achievement even if you don't like it.

See, that's the attitude I don't understand. You basically admit that he has pushed outdates and inferior products and foist them on the public. He "utterly destroyed" the competition with illegal and unethical activities, yet people continue to heap praise upon him. I would label him as an anathema for what he has done, not a phenomenon. In another time he would have been labeled a fraud or a charlatan, but because of the world we live in today and the march of technology he's hailed a hero instead of what he really is. People continue to see greatness where it doesn't really exist. There is a fine line between being famous and infamous, and Bill Gates is firmly on the infamous side at this point.
 
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If you consider dirty dealing, illegal business practices, strong arming the competition mafia style, underhanded deals, downright lying, cheating and stealing to be the epitome of capitalism, then you are correct.

I'm not at all certain that using (and probably creating as well) a market failure in the Western world to make money, and then turn around and use the money created through the market failure to fund amongst other things AIDS research is all that bad. It seems awfully similar to taxation - if private taxation were legalized anyway.
 
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I must be doing something right, I've gotten 2 consecutive negative feedback for this thread already!

I have you beat with three :p

I think both sides have some very good points here. I do not have time to contribute much, and for that I apologize (considering I created the thread). But I am thoroughly enjoying the debate. Debate doesn't change peoples minds, but it certainly enlightens them.
 
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I'm not at all certain that using (and probably creating as well) a market failure in the Western world to make money, and then turn around and use the money created through the market failure to fund amongst other things AIDS research is all that bad. It seems awfully similar to taxation - if private taxation were legalized anyway.


So in your estimation, the end (Aids research and charity work) do justfy the means (lying, cheating , stealing)?
 
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... I would suggest that the world as a whole has benefited from it. Think back to the period when PCs were first introduced. Apple, Commodore, IBM, Microsoft, Radio Shack, EVERYBODY had a computer design. They were all different and they were all incompatible. Progress was VERY slow in software and hardware development because there was no clear "path to the money". If you were a company wanting to build products for this market, it was "place your bets" time. You had to guess where the largest segment of the market would lie, wherein of course would be your potential customers.

The Windows/Intel (Wintel) jaugernaut changed that. It established a clear front runner, for better or worse, and by less than ethical methods IMHO. Irrespective of that though, it established a clear winner, and a clear "path to the money" for vendors. Software and hardware exploded.
...

This is where I disagree most.

Before Microsoft, the PC market was a vibrant, competitive economy. Yes, companies went bust, things were constantly changing, and there was no single path to the big bucks. This is what a competitive market is supposed to be like. Choice and freedom. Standards determined by what was best, not what was bundled. So many good ideas were introduced during this time, only to be forgotten until Microsoft (or Apple) "rediscovered" them a decade later.

Microsoft's dominance of the market produced stability in the way that only totalitarian control can. But hey, the trains ran on time.
 
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This is where I disagree most.

Before Microsoft, the PC market was a vibrant, competitive economy. Yes, companies went bust, things were constantly changing, and there was no single path to the big bucks. This is what a competitive market is supposed to be like. Choice and freedom. Standards determined by what was best, not what was bundled. So many good ideas were introduced during this time, only to be forgotten until Microsoft (or Apple) "rediscovered" them a decade later.

Microsoft's dominance of the market produced stability in the way that only totalitarian control can. But hey, the trains ran on time.

You're forgetting that that back then it was still a level playing field; everyone had an equal chance. But, for some reason, the majority chose the wintel option and the rest is history. Will people look back on the mp3 player market and feel the same? Will they feel that superior products, in their opinion, were available but big evil Apple came out with their closed ecosystem and forced you to use their products in order to listen to music? Something to think about.

In the end, you have to be careful about who you point your finger at for being dirty and underhanded. It's easy to do so if you're not using their product, like Microsoft. But think about it next time you go shopping at a major retail outlet like Wal-Mart. And not just Wal-Mart, any major retailer like them (Meijer, K-Mart) puts the squeeze on suppliers because they have the leverage as the distributors or participates in underhanded deals to stay on top.

Even if you don't shop at those places, think about the clothes on your back, which are very likely to have been made by very underpaid, and perhaps very young people. Probably even the components in computer!

Really, this can all be attributed to our free-market economy. All it takes is one competitor who is willing to do something less than ethical and everyone else has to follow in order to stay competitive.
 
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