Bill Gates' Blog

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Bill Gates House
     media: 5.00 din 4 voturi


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  postat de bloginvest in 2008-01-13 10:22 | Trackback 0 comentarii

Gates to get Harvard degree
     media: 4.92 din 12 voturi

It's not like he needs it to beef up his resume, but the world's richest college dropout is finally getting his degree.

Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., will speak at Harvard University's commencement ceremony in June and like all commencement speakers will receive an honorary degree from the institution.

It's hard to guess if Gates, the wealthiest person in the world and co-founder of a company that brought in US billion in revenue last year, cares. But the programming whiz who once dropped out of Harvard will likely feel some sense of satisfaction.

Gates arrived at Harvard as a freshman in 1973 and while there got to know Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, who lived just down the hall. Gates had already discovered his interest in software, having programmed computers since the age of 13. While at Harvard, Gates helped develop a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer, the MITS Altair.

During his junior year, Gates dropped out of the university to work full-time on Microsoft, a company he and his childhood friend Paul Allen founded. In hindsight, it's hard to criticize that decision.

The commencement ceremony takes place June 7. Harvard does award honorary degrees in different subjects but doesn't announce the subject in advance.

In July next year, Gates plans to step down from his day-to-day role at Microsoft in order to devote most of his time to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic organization dedicated to solving global health problems and funding educational programs. He'll remain chairman of Microsoft.

Source: infoworld.com

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  postat de bloginvest in 2007-11-10 15:18 | Trackback 0 comentarii

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to Make Historic Joint Appearance At the Fifth Annual 'D: All Things Digital' Conference
     media: 5.00 din 12 voturi

NEW YORK, Feb. 20, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Apple, Inc. CEO Steve Jobs and Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, the seminal figures in the development of the personal computer, will make a rare joint appearance at The Wall Street Journal's ``D: All Things Digital'' conference this year. The two men will jointly discuss the history and future of the digital revolution in an unrehearsed, unscripted, onstage conversation on May 30 with D co-producers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

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Both executives have made multiple individual appearances at the conference, which will celebrate its fifth anniversary this year, and is known as D5. But this will be their first joint session at D, and a highly unusual event.

In addition to participating in the joint session with Mr. Gates, Mr. Jobs will appear on his own in a separate segment at D5 to discuss the latest developments at Apple, including new ventures such as the iPhone and Apple TV. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will also appear at the conference in his own segment, to discuss Windows, Office, the Xbox, Zune, and other topics.

The D5 conference will also feature an impressive roster of other leaders in technology and media. Confirmed speakers include Google CEO Eric Schmidt; CBS President Les Moonves; Cisco CEO John Chambers; film director George Lucas; online pioneer Steve Case; Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore; News Corp. President Peter Chernin; Palm founder Jeff Hawkins; and Steve Chen and Chad Hurley of YouTube.

Like past editions of the conference, D5 will be an all-interview event, without canned speeches. The conference, which is sold out, will take place May 29-31 near San Diego, California. For more information, see d.wsj.com.

To see past D videos, and to sign up to be notified when the all-new D Web site launches, users can go to allthingsd.com.

D5 is sponsored by Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Houlihan Lokey, IDA Ireland, Kodak, NYSE Group, and Qualcomm.

About The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal, the flagship publication of Dow Jones & Company (NYSE:DJ - News) (http://www.dowjones.com), is the world's leading business publication. Founded in 1889, The Wall Street Journal has a print and online circulation of nearly 2.1 million, reaching the nation's top business and political leaders, as well as investors across the country.

Holding 31 Pulitzer Prizes for outstanding journalism, the Journal seeks to help its readers succeed by providing essential and relevant information, presented accurately and fairly, from an authoritative and trusted source.

The Wall Street Journal print franchise has more than 600 journalists world-wide, part of the Dow Jones network of nearly 1,900 business and financial news staff. Other publications that are part of The Wall Street Journal franchise, with total circulation of 2.7 million, include The Wall Street Journal Asia, The Wall Street Journal Europe and The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com, the largest paid subscription news site on the Web. In 2006, the Journal was ranked No. 1 in BtoB's Media Power 50 for the seventh consecutive year.

The Wall Street Journal logo is available

Source: Yahoo Finance

  postat de bloginvest in 2007-11-10 15:14 | Trackback 0 comentarii

Microsoft Memories
     media: 5.00 din 12 voturi

Back when I was tomev at Microsoft (1992-1994), billg managed to a large degree by bullying. Even in conversation, btw, people at Microsoft were known by their email names. I didn’t report directly to billg; but, during much of the time I was there, I worked for mikemap (Mike Maples), who reported to billg, had responsibility for all the products, and was part of the boop. Boop stood for billg plus the office of the president (real presidents didn’t last very long there). The oop consisted of steveb ( Steve Ballmer) and mikemap. Major decisions were sometimes made by the boop.

Microsoft was a fairly flat organization at that time although it already had 10,000 employees. That meant that I and the other product managers got to spend a fair amount of time either doing reviews for billg or, sometimes, bringing issues to the boop. Presenting to billg and surviving a presentation to billg were key success skills in the company. Billg rarely used postive feedback as a motivational tool; he found the stick more effective than the carrot although options, which were then skyrocketing, WERE a very effective carrot.

So you’re in there presenting your product plan to billg, steveb, and mikemap. Billg typically has his eyes closed and he’s rocking back and forth. He could be asleep; he could be thinking about something else; he could be listening intently to everything you’re saying. The trouble is all are possible and you don’t know which. Obviously, you have to present as if he were listening intently even though you know he isn’t looking at the PowerPoint slides you spent so much time on.

At some point in your presentation billg will say “that’s the dumbest fucking idea I’ve heard since I’ve been at Microsoft.” He looks like he means it. However, since you knew he was going to say this, you can’t really let it faze you. Moreover, you can’t afford to look fazed; remember: he’s a bully.

“What do you disagree with, Bill?” you ask as assertively as you can. He tells you. Maybe it’s the plan for user interface; maybe it’s the product positioning; maybe it’s the technical approach you’re taking to a problem or your evaluation of the enemy (competition). If you see that your dead wrong – you may be, he’s very smart – best to admit it immediately and move on. But, if he’s wrong – which is also often the case – then you CAN’T give in. You will be just as much blamed for doing the wrong thing because billg told you to as you will be if you did it all on your own. This is the moment of truth for a Microsoft manager.

“Bill,” you say, “I know you made a billion dollars yesterday; I know you’re on the cover of Fortune; I know you can probably code this whole application in Visual Basic over the weekend; but you’re wrong.” And you tell him why and how you know you’re right. You have to do this so you do.

You get no positive feedback. Billg looks at you coldly. “Go on,” he says. You do just that. You don’t go back and give more arguments for the point you made; you just continue. You’ve also just passed a big test – if you turn out to be right.

Some people flourished in this trial by fire atmosphere. In fact, that is exactly what billg was doing. As smart as he is, he had no way to know most of the time whether the person presenting to him was right or wrong (unless their logic was obviously confused in which case they deserved whatever happened to them). So he tested us. Since you knew you were likely to be tested on anything, you really did think long and hard about what you were doing and what you were presenting. You had to be really tough to bluff although it happened. And you worked doubly hard afterwards to make sure that what you just presented so confidently actually came to pass.

Two problems with this approach: one is that kinder and gentler people, who may be still be very smart, get stomach aches and other unpleasant symptoms when they gave to confront bullying. Microsoft lost out on some people who could have contributed but couldn’t take this kind of heat. Second problem is that the bullying gets emulated down the line. There was nothing quite as absurd as a newly-hired college graduate thinking he could be as smart or rich as billg if he could only manage to be as rude.

Subject continued in Should billg Stop Bullying?

All about Microsoft Meetings with a special audio supplement is posted here.


Source: blog.tomevslin.com


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  postat de bloginvest in 2007-11-10 14:01 | Trackback 0 comentarii

Jobs vs. Gates: Who's the Star ?
     media: 5.00 din 12 voturi

Until recently, Bill Gates has been viewed as the villain of the tech world, while his archrival, Steve Jobs, enjoys an almost saintly reputation.

Gates is the cutthroat capitalist. A genius maybe, but one more interested in maximizing profits than perfecting technology. He's the ultimate vengeful nerd. Ostracized at school, he gets the last laugh by bleeding us all dry.

On the other hand, Jobs has never seemed much concerned with business, though he's been very successful at it of late. Instead, Jobs has been portrayed as a man of art and culture. He's an aesthete, an artist; driven to make a dent in the universe.

But these perceptions are wrong. In fact, the reality is reversed. It's Gates who's making a dent in the universe, and Jobs who's taking on the role of single-minded capitalist, seemingly oblivious to the broader needs of society.

Gates is giving away his fortune with the same gusto he spent acquiring it, throwing billions of dollars at solving global health problems. He has also spoken out on major policy issues, for example, by opposing proposals to cut back the inheritance tax.

In contrast, Jobs does not appear on any charitable contribution lists of note. And Jobs has said nary a word on behalf of important social issues, reserving his talents of persuasion for selling Apple products.

According to Forbes, Jobs was recently worth .3 billion which puts him among the 194th richest in the world, and makes him the 67th richest American. But the standings were shuffled on Tuesday with Disney's .4 billion acquisition of Pixar Animation -- a deal that makes Jobs' Pixar holdings alone worth some .7 billion.

But great wealth does not make a great man.

Giving USA Foundation, a philanthropy research group which publishes an annual charity survey, said Jobs does not appear on lists of gifts of million or more over the last four years. Nor is his name on a list of gifts of million or more compiled by Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy.

Jobs' wife is also absent from these philanthropic lists, although she has made dozens of political donations totaling tens of thousands of dollars to the Democrats, according to the Open Secrets database.

Of course, Jobs and his wife may be giving enormous sums of money to charity anonymously. If they are funneling cash to various causes in private, their names wouldn't show up on any lists, regardless of the size of their gifts.

For a person as private as Jobs, who shuns any publicity about his family life, this seems credible. If so, however, this would make Jobs virtually unique among moguls. Richard Jolly, chairman of Giving USA Foundation, said not all billionaires give their money away, but a lot do, and most do not do it quietly.

"We see it over and over again," he said. "Very wealthy individuals do support the organizations and institutions they believe in."

That's certainly true of Gates, who not only gives vast sums away, but also speaks up in support of the organizations and institutions he believes in.

This is not the case for Jobs. To the best of my knowledge, in the last decade or more, Jobs has not spoken up on any social or political issue he believes in -- with the exception of admitting he's a big Bob Dylan fan.

Rather, he uses social issues to support his own selfish business goals. In the Think Different campaign, Jobs used cultural figures he admired to sell computers -- figures who stuck their necks out to fight racism, poverty, inequality or war.

Jobs once offered to be an advisor to Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election, and he invited President Clinton over for dinner when Bubba visited Silicon Valley in 1996 -- hardly evidence of deep political convictions.

Jobs can't even get behind causes that would seem to carry deep personal meaning, let alone lasting social importance. Like Lance Armstrong, he is a cancer survivor. But unlike Armstrong, Jobs has so far done little publicly to raise money or awareness for the disease.

Given Jobs' social detachment, I'm confused by the adulation he enjoys. Yes, he has great charisma and his presentations are good theater. But his absence from public discourse makes him a cipher. People project their values onto him, and he skates away from the responsibilities that come with great wealth and power.

On the evidence, he's nothing more than a greedy capitalist who's amassed an obscene fortune. It's shameful. In almost every way, Gates is much more deserving of Jobs' rock star exaltation.

In the same way, I admire Bono over Mick Jagger, and John Lennon over Elvis, because they spoke up about things bigger than their own celebrity.

It's time for Jobs to do the same.

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  postat de bloginvest in 2007-11-10 13:57 | Trackback 0 comentarii

Bill Gates finally graduates
     media: 4.79 din 14 voturi

Gates, who dropped out of Harvard in his junior year before co-founding Microsoft Corp. and going on to become the world's richest person, stopped off at his former stomping grounds to collect an honorary law degree.

“We recognize the most illustrious member of the Harvard College class of 1977 never to have graduated from Harvard,” said Harvard University Provost Steven Hyman.

“While his classmates, including his friend Steve Ballmer, were busy cramming for midterms, he was planning for a revolution, the rise of the personal computer,” Hyman said. “It seems high time that his alma mater hand over the diploma.”

Ballmer is now Microsoft's chief executive officer.

During Hyman's comments, Gates, 51, smiled and nodded to the applauding graduates. He was scheduled to address them later on Thursday afternoon.

The lack of a degree didn't slow Gates' rise to the top echelons of business.

In 1980, Gates and his colleagues at Microsoft were canny enough to negotiate an agreement with International Business Machines Corp. that gave the start-up software company the right to license its operating system for a new generation of personal computers to other manufacturers.

That arrangement ultimately turned the computer business on its ear, shifting power from hardware manufacturers to software programmers. Today, hundreds of companies manufacture hundreds of thousands of brand-name personal computers each year, but more than 90 per cent of those machines use Microsoft's Windows operating system.

PHILANTHROPIC WORK

At Harvard, Gates lived down the hall from Ballmer, who stayed on to graduate after Gates dropped out to focus his energies on Microsoft, which he founded in 1975 with childhood friend Paul Allen. Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980.

Microsoft went public in 1986 and by the next year the company's soaring share prices had made then-31-year-old Gates the world's youngest self-made billionaire.

Last year, Gates said he would step down from his day-to-day management role at Microsoft in 2008 to focus on philanthropic work.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, founded in 2000, supports projects to improve health, reduce poverty and increase public access to technology.

Gates' commitment to charity caught the attention of famed investor Warren Buffett, the world's second richest man. Last year, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., pledged the bulk of his fortune to the Gates Foundation.

That .7-billion donation, to be paid out in stages on the condition that the money be given away in the year it is donated, roughly doubled the size of the Gates Foundation.

Harvard also awarded honorary degrees to former National Basketball Association great Bill Russell and former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, a former president of Harvard who was forced out after making controversial comments about women in academia that ignited a firestorm among the faculty.



Source: Hubpage.com

  postat de bloginvest in 2007-09-08 20:58 | Trackback 0 comentarii

Microsoft raises stakes in 'net ad biz bidding
     media: 5.00 din 18 voturi

May 1, 2007 -- Eager to catch up with Google and Yahoo!, Microsoft has emerged as a contender, along with ad giant WPP Group, to buy Internet ad firm 24/7 Real Media, The Post has learned.

Sources said the software giant is considering a price in the billion range for 24/7 Media - a giant leap from the 0 million valuation analysts placed on the firm.

Microsoft, which has been kicking a lot of tires in the last few weeks, is getting serious about the ad firm after two of its fiercest rivals increased their online arsenals through similar acquisitions.

Yahoo! announced yesterday it would buy the 80 percent of online ad exchange Right Media it didn't own for 0 million, valuing the entire firm at around 0 million. The acquisition follows Google's .1 billion deal for DoubleClick, which serves up and tracks Web ads.

Microsoft's deep pockets and fear of falling behind rivals could further drive up the price for 24/7 Real Media, one of the remaining players in the same space.

Yahoo!'s pouncing on Right Media after Google's DoubleClick deal also drove up prices for 24/7 Media and other Internet ad firms.

A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment on what she described as speculation and rumor.

"The longer they waited, the more they would have to pay," said Kevin Lee, chairman of search-advertising firm Did-it.com.

The wave of consolidation in the Internet ad space already has investors buzzing about a potential buyout of 24/7 Real Media, whose stock spiked 17 percent the day The Post first reported that WPP was in talks with the firm.

WPP, the No. 2 ad agency holding company, is less likely to win a bidding war for 24/7 Media, with analysts doubting it has the financial firepower to match Microsoft.

Although speculation is rife that Microsoft would also consider buying DoubleClick competitor aQuantive, the software giant appears more likely to take a pass. Along with ad-serving capabilities, aQuantive also owns Web creative ad agency Avenue A/Razorfish.

"A big part of [aQuantive's] business doesn't fit with them," said one source.

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  postat de bloginvest in 2007-05-04 16:43 | Trackback 0 comentarii

Microsoft Eyes Search Giant In Proposed Takeover
     media: 5.00 din 15 voturi

May 4, 2007 -- Stung by the loss of Internet advertising firm DoubleClick to Google last month, Microsoft has intensified its pursuit of a deal with Yahoo!, asking the company to re-enter formal negotiations, The Post has learned.

While Microsoft and Yahoo! have held informal deal talks over the years, sources say the latest approach signals an urgency on Microsoft's part that has up until now been lacking.

The new approach follows an offer Microsoft made to acquire Yahoo! a few months ago, sources said. But Yahoo! spurned the advances of the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant. Wall Street sources put a roughly billion price tag on Yahoo!.

"They're getting tired of being left at the altar," said one banking source who has recently had talks with Microsoft. "They now seem more willing to extend themselves via a transaction to get into the game."

Part of the reason for that is because Google keeps trumping Microsoft on the deal front, beating out the company on not just DoubleClick, but also for a renewed search advertising pact with AOL in 2005 that Microsoft lusted after.

Moreover, with Google developing Internet-based software that directly competes with Microsoft Office, sources said Microsoft has no choice but to go on the offensive.

"The minute you hear Microsoft start arguing against something on antitrust grounds, you know they are desperate and need to do something big," said one source.

Sources said Microsoft is working with Goldman Sachs.

News of Microsoft's latest approach comes as Yahoo!'s new search advertising platform Project Panama is just getting off the ground.

The long-awaited platform posted disappointing first-quarter results, but sources said that was more a function of difficult comparisons to the year-earlier period and less a sign that the system wasn't working. That said, another quarter or two of similar results and investors might begin renewing calls for a sale or for CEO Terry Semel to step down.

As it stands now, a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! would up the combined companies' share of the all-important search advertising market to 27 percent against Google's 65 percent. It would also narrow the gap in overall online ads with Google to just 13 percent.

More importantly, a deal would create what one source described as "the dominant force on the Internet" in terms of eyeballs. That's an important consideration as more and more content flows online - as the equations goes, eyeballs equal advertising.

Microsoft and Yahoo! also feature complimentary offerings on the content side, with MSN drawing an older audience with its news focus. By contrast, Yahoo! attracts a younger demographic with its entertainment coverage.

Aside from cost savings, a deal would also create opportunities to use Yahoo! content on Microsoft devices, such as making music exclusively provided to Yahoo! Music available on Microsoft's Xbox game console and Zune music player.

A spokeswoman for Yahoo! declined comment. Microsoft declined comment. peter.lauria@nypost.com

Souce: nypost.com


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  postat de bloginvest in 2007-05-04 15:41 | Trackback 0 comentarii

Bill Gates could join the ranks of bloggers
     media: 4.96 din 22 voturi

By Brier Dudley
Seattle Times technology reporter

Bill Gates has a reputation for coming late to the party, then making a big splash when he arrives.

That's what happened after the Microsoft chairman realized the potential of the Internet. And it may happen again if he starts his personal Web log.

Yes, the world's richest man may start his own blog, one of those online diaries that have been the rage among techies for the past three or four years.

Bill's blog won't be all business, either. He's expected to share personal details such as tidbits from recent vacations, according to tech pundit Mary Jo Foley's Microsoft Watch newsletter. Citing unnamed sources, she reported yesterday that Gates is about to start blogging "real soon now."

Microsoft spokesman Mark Murray would not confirm the story, but left open the possibility, saying, "Bill would love to do his own blog at some point in the future, time permitting."

Murray noted that Gates talked up blogging at gathering of executives in Redmond last month.

"Bill and the company are very enthusiastic about blogging," he said. "Bill talked a lot about the power and potential of blogging at the CEO Summit and the advantages it gives to communicating and sharing information with a wide range of potential audiences."

Blogs were first produced by techies in the late 1990s using special software that makes it easy to produce and update the personal Web pages.

Now 44 percent of U.S. Internet users contributed content to the Web, and 2 percent maintain their own blogs, according to a February study by the Pew Internet & American Life research project. With about 128 million adult Internet users in the country, that would mean there are more than 2.5 million blogs.

Corporations, especially software companies in the Silicon Valley, embraced blogs as a way to interact with their customers.

One of the early players was Google, which lets people create and maintain blogs free at blogger.com, a business it purchased in 2002.

Some Microsoft employees have been blogging on their own for several years. In January, the company began hosting blogs on its software developer Web site, which as of yesterday listed 709 blogs.

At last month's Microsoft-sponsored CEO Summit, conceived as a forum for chief executives to network and discuss business issues, Gates said blogs are useful for sharing information, particularly because they can notify people when new information is added.

"And so if I do a trip report, say, and put that in a blog format, then all the employees at Microsoft who really want to look at that and who have keywords that connect to it or even people outside, they can find the information," he said, according to a transcript of his talk.

The challenge, especially for busy executives, is keeping blogs up to date.

Eric Rudder, a senior vice president at Microsoft, started a blog in May 2003 but let it lapse for months at a time. Co-workers jokingly suggested they would use his name as a verb, meaning letting one's blog go dormant.

A blog would not be the first time Gates has written for a broad audience. In the early 1990s he wrote a syndicated newspaper column, and he still writes occasional opinion pieces.

Gates has long had his own Web page (www.microsoft.com/billgates) where he posts speeches, and he periodically sends an e-mail newsletter to customers.

Gates also has a stable of writers and communications specialists who help produce material. It's unclear whether they would help keep his blog going.

Barry Mitzman, a former public-television host who helps Gates write materials such as position papers, had not heard that his boss may be blogging.

"That's cool," he said. "If Bill were to do a blog, that would be very interesting. I'd read it."

Brier Dudley: 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

via seattletimes

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  postat de bloginvest in 2007-03-28 04:11 | Trackback 0 comentarii

Global support centres - a new tendency on Romanian labor market
     media: 5.00 din 22 voturi

A new tendency is taking shape on the Romanian labor market. After years years when large Western companies opened or moved production units to Romania, now it’s the turn for technical support centres and “intelligence services” department.

Big names such as Microsoft, Renault, IBM and recently Ericsson have created or are about to create global support centres on Romanian territories. They suggest foreign companies are still more interested in Romanian trained personnel, beyond the usual interest in cheap, low-qualification labor.

Three are the reasons for the trend: the still low taxes, cheam work force and the geographical coverage of such centres.

The first steps were made several years ago, but it is only now that Romania can speak of a real tendency in this regard, as the country’s accession to the European Union is making an impact.

One principle that makes foreign companies move is that instead of paying higher salaries to educated immigrants they’d better come to the home countries of those migrants, have them work at lower salaries and expand their own markets. It is a sort of “inward exodus” of grey matter.

Educated Romanians are no longer leaving to work for companies abroad, but instead turn their eyes to similar companies who move operations to Romania. Microsoft and Ericsson are good examples in this regard.

Swedish group Ericsson announced last weekend it would open a global support centre in Romania. Prime minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu met Ericsson representatives in Bucharest on Friday, February 9 to discuss the possibilities in this regard.

Ericsson is the biggest telecom equipment producer worldwide. And its announcement came less than two weeks after Bill Gates inaugurated Microsoft’s Technical Support Center in Bucarest to provide services and technical support to Microsoft clients in Europe, the Middle East and Africa starting this year.

And Renault also announced plans to invest in a similar project in Romania recently.

HotNews.ro, Feb 12, 2007

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  postat de bloginvest in 2007-02-17 23:27 | Trackback 1 comentarii

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