Bill Gates

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Bill Gates' Legacy George Washington. Babe Ruth. Gandhi. Bill Gates? Say what you will about that bloated operating system Gates has been hawking for the past 25 years, history will show that Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s cofounder and chairman belongs among the world's great champions and leaders. As he moves beyond Microsoft to throw his energies into philanthropy, Gates will be remembered as an inspiring technologist and brilliant businessman who jump-started the commercial software market and populated the world with nearly a half-billion PCs, unleashing a wave of personal creativity and productivity on a scale never before seen.

Gates' postretirement biography will have its share of ugliness, too--a decade-long spat with the open source community, monopolistic business practices that culminated in a U.S. government-led antitrust trial, buggy software that was easily exploited--but those will be footnotes when all is said and done. The good that has flowed from Gates' Windows, Office, and hundreds of other software products far outweighs the bad. "He's done so many things to change people's lives," observes Bill McDermott, CEO of partner and sometimes rival SAP (NYSE: SAP) America.

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We Talk To Several Experts To Get Some Helpful Tips On Planning Your Next Server Migration The PC revolution, a direct result of software standardization, was Bill Gates' doing. That paved the way for business adoption of not just Windows PCs, but also Windows-based servers, bringing the benefits of hardware commoditization and integrated software--e-mail, databases, Web servers--to departments and data centers. Gates didn't create the Internet or even the first browser (he'll never live that one down), but he did make Internet Explorer a freebie with every copy of Windows that shipped, with the result that PC computing and Web browsing became part of the same experience. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is indebted to him for it.

Does it seem premature in mid-2007 to analyze what Gates' lasting contribution to the computer industry will be? Gates thinks so, declining InformationWeek's request for an interview. But Gates himself put the wheels for this kind of retrospective in motion on June 15, 2006, when he revealed that, effective immediately, he was turning over his day-to-day responsibilities to Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie, then departed on an extended vacation. Gates hasn't left the company completely--he'll keep working until July 2008, after which he will stay on as chairman and advise on key projects--but he has one foot out the door. In 2003, Gates said he would be in his job for another 10 years, until 2013; he's heading for the exit five years early.

Gates' early retirement comes at a critical time, as Microsoft hustles to adapt to a world where competing open source and Web application software can be had for little to no cost, undercutting the company's lucrative licensing model. One question history will have to answer is whether Gates dropped the ball in preparing Microsoft for this new age of Web software. He bobbled it, but, so far, that ball hasn't hit the ground. Microsoft already has more applications on the Web than many people realize--blogging software, maps, Hotmail, Office Live, to name a few. For Microsoft, it's less a question of technical feasibility than of business-model adaptability. If Microsoft Word were offered as a free word processor on the Web tomorrow, how would the company justify charging $229 for an out-of-the-box license? Gates is leaving that problem to Ozzie and CEO Steve Ballmer to figure out.

If developing integrated software is half of the Gates legacy, making money at it is the other half. As a moppy-headed 20-year-old, Gates challenged computer "hobbyists"--we call them users today--to pay for the software they used. "As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software," Gates charged in an infamous letter published in February 1976, setting the stage for an intellectual property battle that's raging 31 years later against Linux developers and vendors.

Gates, of course, was successful--wildly so--in getting most computer users to pay for their software, and thousands of other commercial software companies have followed. Today, the worldwide software market exceeds $240 billion annually. "He built the first software company before anybody in our industry knew what a software company was," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said last month in a public appearance with Gates. "That was huge. And the business model they ended up pursuing turned out to be the one that worked really well for the industry."

All along the way, Gates has walked a fine line between business savvy and hard-nosed opportunism, and his company sometimes went too far. "There was a period when its tactics were over the line," says Mitchell Kertzman, a partner with venture capital firm Hummer Winblad who, as CEO of Powersoft, then Sybase (NYSE: SY), then Liberate Technologies, had his share of run-ins with Microsoft. In 2002, Kertzman testified against what he calls Microsoft's "bullying tactics" when several states dissented following the settlement reached in Microsoft's antitrust case.

Yet for every company that has struggled to survive against Microsoft, others have sprouted and thrived. Attend any Microsoft conference, and you'll see a mosh pit of developers looking for the best ways to plug into Microsoft's expansive software environment. It's called the Windows ecosystem, and Gates has masterfully tended to it, speaking to coders in their techno-jargon and handing out beta code to keep them hooked.

"We can't have a 32-bit driver with 32-bit pointers able to put information anywhere in a 64-bit address space," he lectured attendees at Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Los Angeles last month, urging them to upgrade their device drivers for the new world of 64-bit computing.

Gates has guided the PC industry through two mega architectural shifts--from 16-bit Windows 3.0 in the early days of PC computing to 32-bit Windows NT, and more recently to 64-bit Windows x64. There have been breathtaking advances in computer science under his watch, and while Gates himself wasn't the brains behind these shifts, he was a steady hand at the wheel, and that more than anything is what the industry needed.

Software engineering gurus are a dime a dozen, and tech execs with "vision" are nearly as plentiful. Gates has been unique in his ability to combine the two roles--developing a product road map that leads to a future of converged devices and applications, while conveying the big picture in such a way that developers and customers have stayed on for the ride.

Gates' 4 golden rules

Bill Gates may walk out the door on July 1, but he leaves a lasting impression. These are four of his core beliefs that are likely to carry on at the company he founded.

By David Kirkpatrick, senior editor

Last Updated: June 20, 2008: 5:33 PM EDT

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Gates' 4 golden rules

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(Fortune Magazine) -- Think of software as a utopian tool. "Thirty-three years ago the company was founded on the proposition that software would be important," says Gates. "Looking at the next decade, the value that will be created by software and popular software platforms will be greater than ever."

Gates takes what colleagues call a utopian view of software. He believes it can do anything. That means the revolution is just beginning. Says longtime Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) executive Craig Mundie: "Today Microsoft actually thinks about itself as just a software company - not a specific type of software company, not a PC software company, not a word-processor software company. And that has been many years in coming."

Let the engineers rule. Microsoft employs about 30,000 programmers among its 90,000 people. In operating groups engineers are involved in every major decision. Not only that, engineers typically get paid more than businesspeople.

The geeks also get lots of toys: Microsoft's $8 billion computer science R&D lab is the world's largest. At a recent executive retreat, Gates said he thought every great businessperson at Microsoft should cultivate at least five close relationships with engineers.

Institutionalize paranoia. "It's very Microsoft to prepare for the worst," says Gates. His heirs agree, and they want to keep it that way. The collective worry a few years ago was that Linux and open-source software could wipe out Microsoft. Today there are products across the company that take for granted that customers will use open source products alongside Microsoft's own.

Meanwhile, Windows Server is finally gaining market share against Linux. Fear is what enabled the company to make that necessary transition. "Bill and Steve created what I guess I'd characterize as a culture of crisis," says chief software architect Ray Ozzie. "There's always someone who's going to take the company down. It's mythical, but at any given point in time there might be two or three big competitive things that the company is juggling. It's something people here are used to, and it's accretive in terms of making things more resilient over time."

Invest for the long term. One of Microsoft's most successful products at the moment is SharePoint, a set of tools to enable companies to build both internal and external websites - everything from collaboration and blogs to a flagship dot-com. This year it will generate about $1 billion in revenue. But that product has been evolving for a decade.

"Whatever the cycle is, we will keep investing through the cycle," says Entertainment division president Robbie Bach, "because we know on the other side of whatever cycle happens, there is opportunity. That's just the way the company thinks about itself."

How I Work: Bill Gates

Not much of a paper chase for Microsoft's chairman, who uses a range of digital tools to do business.

Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect, Microsoft, U.S.A.

April 7, 2006: 5:17 PM EDT

NEW YORK (FORTUNE) - It's pretty incredible to look back 30 years to when Microsoft (Research) was starting and realize how work has been transformed. We're finally getting close to what I call the digital workstyle.

If you look at this office, there isn't much paper in it. On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you'll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.

In the digital age, Microsoft chair Bill Gates uses a lot of electricity, but not as much paper.

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 How I work

E-mail and voicemail; yoga and personal assistants; structure and grooving: A dozen accomplished people tell what works for them. (See the gallery.)

The screen on the left has my list of e-mails. On the center screen is usually the specific e-mail I'm reading and responding to. And my browser is on the right-hand screen. This setup gives me the ability to glance and see what new has come in while I'm working on something, and to bring up a link that's related to an e-mail and look at it while the e-mail is still in front of me.

At Microsoft, e-mail is the medium of choice, more than phone calls, documents, blogs, bulletin boards, or even meetings (voicemails and faxes are actually integrated into our e-mail in-boxes).

I get about 100 e-mails a day. We apply filtering to keep it to that level—e-mail comes straight to me from anyone I've ever corresponded with, anyone from Microsoft, Intel, HP, and all the other partner companies, and anyone I know. And I always see a write-up from my assistant of any other e-mail, from companies that aren't on my permission list or individuals I don't know. That way I know what people are praising us for, what they are complaining about, and what they are asking.

We're at the point now where the challenge isn't how to communicate effectively with e-mail, it's ensuring that you spend your time on the e-mail that matters most. I use tools like "in-box rules" and search folders to mark and group messages based on their content and importance.

I'm not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar. So when I walk up to my desk, I can focus on the e-mails I've flagged and check the folders that are monitoring particular projects and particular blogs.

Outlook also has a little notification box that comes up in the lower right whenever a new e-mail comes in. We call it the toast. I'm very disciplined about ignoring that unless I see that it's a high-priority topic.

Staying focused is one issue; that's the problem of information overload. The other problem is information underload. Being flooded with information doesn't mean we have the right information or that we're in touch with the right people.

I deal with this by using SharePoint, a tool that creates websites for collaboration on specific projects. These sites contain plans, schedules, discussion boards, and other information, and they can be created by just about anyone in the company with a couple of clicks.

Right now, I'm getting ready for Think Week. In May, I'll go off for a week and read 100 or more papers from Microsoft employees that examine issues related to the company and the future of technology. I've been doing this for over 12 years. It used to be an all-paper process in which I was the only one doing the reading and commenting. Today the whole process is digital and open to the entire company.

I'm now far more efficient in picking the right papers to read, and I can add electronic comments that everyone sees in real time.

Microsoft has more than 50,000 people, so when I'm thinking, "Hey, what's the future of the online payment system?" or "What's a great way to keep track of your memories of your kid?" or any neat new thing, I write it down. Then people can see it and say, "No, you're wrong" or "Did you know about this work being done at such-and-such a place?"

SharePoint puts me in touch with lots of people deep in the organization. It's like having a super-website that lets many people edit and discuss—far more than the standard practice of sending e-mails with enclosures. And it notifies you if anything comes up in an area you're interested in.

Another digital tool that has had a big effect on my productivity is desktop search. It has transformed the way I access information on my PC, on servers, and on the Internet. With larger hard drives and increasing bandwidth, I now have gigabytes of information on my PC and servers in the form of e-mails, documents, media files, contact databases, and so on.

Instead of having to navigate through folders to find that one document where I think a piece of information might be, I simply type search terms into a toolbar and all the e-mails and documents that contain that information are at my fingertips. The same goes for phone numbers and email addresses.

Paper is no longer a big part of my day. I get 90% of my news online, and when I go to a meeting and want to jot things down, I bring my Tablet PC. It's fully synchronized with my office machine so I have all the files I need. It also has a note-taking piece of software called OneNote, so all my notes are in digital form.

The one low-tech piece of equipment still in my office is my whiteboard. I always have nice color pens, and it's great for brainstorming when I'm with other people, and even sometimes by myself.

The whiteboards in some Microsoft offices have the ability to capture an image and send it up to the computer, almost like a huge Tablet PC. I don't have that right now, but probably I'll get a digital whiteboard in the next year. Today, if there's something up there that's brilliant, I just get out my pen and my Tablet PC and recreate it.

Days are often filled with meetings. It's a nice luxury to get some time to go write up my thoughts or follow up on meetings during the day. But sometimes that doesn't happen. So then it's great after the kids go to bed to be able to just sit at home and go through whatever e-mail I didn't get to. If the entire week is very busy, it's the weekend when I'll send the long, thoughtful pieces of e-mail. When people come in Monday morning, they'll see that I've been quite busy— they'll have a lot of e-mail.

Here goes…… my 10 golden rules to start you off to richness…..

1. Calculate Your Worth

Make out a list of all your assets, no matter how small they may seem right now. You may do it singly if you are not married or do a combine if you are married and your spouse is keen on a combined investing. You may have at this moment committed to a car for your own use or a house for your own dwelling. Remember that these mortgages are liabilities not assets. Retirement Fund savings (EPF in Malaysia, 401K in USA) may be considered part of your assets for long term investing purposes only. Making a list of your assets will assist you in deciding what type of investment will suit you and over what time frame.

2. Do not live in Debt

Nowadays with the easy access to credit cards, young people tend to spend more than they earn. Most people these days spend before they earn which is a very bad habit. If you are already living in debts, get out of it as fast as you can. There is no point considering investing in stock if you are already in this predicament. PAYING HEFTY CREDIT CARD INTEREST CHARGES monthly will eventually eat away any investment returns you may earn. If you are reading this it shows that you are ready to make a change. Do it and get out of debts as fast as you can by daily budgeting your expense; spend only on necessity. You will be surprise how fast you can get out of this hell hole. Continue to visit this site and you will have more stuff to learn as we go along…..

3 Know your risk levels

Think carefully of your future plans; talk it over with your spouse to get the general consensus. Where would you like to be in a few years’ time? How much would you like to have in liquid cash? Have an objective behind your decision to invest. SET YOURSELF GOAL. You may be aiming to retire young, or have a few houses all paid up to live on the rental earnings and free yourself time working for others. Your age, your drive, your circumstance and economic situation will determine what and how your investing will be. Remember low risk, low earnings and high risk high earnings but you may also lose your money faster.

4 Have available cash

Keep at least 3 months of your salary aside in available cash. Your investing should only involve any extras out of what available cash you have in fixed deposit. This is to keep you free of any financial entanglement and you will not lose out by suddenly having to liquidate any poorly performing investment at any unfavorable time.

5 Learn the basics

Find out about various assets classes and their characteristics. The market for property may appear favorable for first-time homebuyers, but a house is an illiquid investment. Equities are relatively volatile, but can be liquidated quickly.

6 Dollar-cost averages

First time investors have a lot to learn. By contributing a small amount to a savings plan each month, you avoid having to decide when the time is right to buy or sell – skill even most mature investors fail to get right. Regular contributions take the emotion out of investing.

7 Take Advice

Avoid following the herd and buying into the latest fashionable initial public offering. News takes a long time to filter down to the guy in the street and chances are that any hot tip is past its sell-by date. Spend some time with a financial adviser, read the papers or books on investing. That way, you can make educated decisions. Here, I would like to stress for people who are about to plunge themselves into investing to take time to study all kinds of investment avenues before making a decision on what and how to invest.

8 Build a core position

Create a core investment portfolio in something solid such as blue-chip stocks that will bring in steady gains over the years. Or if you do not have time to keep an eye on your share portfolio, you can consider Mutual Fund investment. Here again …. do your research.

9 Diversify

Once you have a core position, look around for satellite investments that may spice up your portfolio. Do not only buy equities, consider bonds, property or collectibles to protect yourself against poor performance in one asset class. Remember the age old saying of “Putting all your eggs in one basket”. Diversify……Diversify……Diversify.

10 Hang in there

Patience is a virtue. Stick to your plan, even if your investment seems to be floundering. New investors are often driven by emotion and react at the wrong times. Financial experts will tell you that timing the market is almost impossible, but time in the market will eventually pay off. Your financial adviser is only there to advice. He/ She may not predict the market a hundred percent. You will have to make your own decision for the right time to sell or buy. Remember; do not be driven by emotion. If you follow the previous chapters correctly, you will not fail in your bid in investing. You may face some set back some of the times but mostly you will get out of it in time. Time is your best teacher.

These 10 golden rules are good for the starters……however reading them is not going to help you very much but by making a decision now and take charge of your life will.

PUT YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS INTO ACTION!!!!

Life and richness is not an illusion