IBM Gates
Bill Gates is the man everyone loves to hate. He is shrewd and successful and a master of negotiation. Unlike most of his competitors, he wasn't in it for the money but for the game.
After reading his bio in Forbes Greatest Technology Stories, I have to admit he was revolutionary and all of us have benefited from his success. Microsoft Windows has changed our lives and still has the best and most applications. Even the Mac runs Windows apps seamlessly now.
My husband is anti-Gates and has loved OS/2 and Linux in turn. These are struggling alternatives on the personal computer -- and IBM gave up on OS/2 some time ago. I wonder... if I tell him that OS/2 was a Microsoft invention, would he let me throw out books and disks that are too dead to keep around?
Most of us old hands are steering clear of Windows Vista. Windows XP still works the best. If we all band together, Microsoft will have to continue supporting it or lose a lot of us. Like they care about that.
FGTS leaves the story in 1998 when Microsoft's next big push was the Internet. I'm pleased to support some of the guys who got there first (Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox) and the new young garage-ites (Google/Yahoo). Though he was right up there with accessibility, Gates was behind in Internet presence. Like IBM, you can't always be in the right place at the right time.
Since l recently moved out of my 8-year-old ThinkPad and into a 2-year-old ThinkCenter (I still love IBM, warts and all), I'm conscious of the need for hardware independence. Lately I'm a particular fan of Google services. I use Blogger, Gmail, Picassa2, Google Desktop, and a new discovery, Notebook. I also subscribe to Carbonite, an online backup service that saved my "cookies" during the transition. Now that I have a faster computer and a faster Internet connection, I can live on-line more. Even if my connection were to fail, it wouldn't be a big deal to find an Internet cafe or a friend who could lend me some time.
So, Bill and Melinda Gates are in the charity business now. If Bill uses his skills to advantage there, perhaps he can actually make a difference to the world again. Did you know his mother was Mary Maxwell Gates, the first woman to chair the national United Way’s executive committee?
After reading his bio in Forbes Greatest Technology Stories, I have to admit he was revolutionary and all of us have benefited from his success. Microsoft Windows has changed our lives and still has the best and most applications. Even the Mac runs Windows apps seamlessly now.
My husband is anti-Gates and has loved OS/2 and Linux in turn. These are struggling alternatives on the personal computer -- and IBM gave up on OS/2 some time ago. I wonder... if I tell him that OS/2 was a Microsoft invention, would he let me throw out books and disks that are too dead to keep around?
Most of us old hands are steering clear of Windows Vista. Windows XP still works the best. If we all band together, Microsoft will have to continue supporting it or lose a lot of us. Like they care about that.
FGTS leaves the story in 1998 when Microsoft's next big push was the Internet. I'm pleased to support some of the guys who got there first (Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox) and the new young garage-ites (Google/Yahoo). Though he was right up there with accessibility, Gates was behind in Internet presence. Like IBM, you can't always be in the right place at the right time.
Since l recently moved out of my 8-year-old ThinkPad and into a 2-year-old ThinkCenter (I still love IBM, warts and all), I'm conscious of the need for hardware independence. Lately I'm a particular fan of Google services. I use Blogger, Gmail, Picassa2, Google Desktop, and a new discovery, Notebook. I also subscribe to Carbonite, an online backup service that saved my "cookies" during the transition. Now that I have a faster computer and a faster Internet connection, I can live on-line more. Even if my connection were to fail, it wouldn't be a big deal to find an Internet cafe or a friend who could lend me some time.
So, Bill and Melinda Gates are in the charity business now. If Bill uses his skills to advantage there, perhaps he can actually make a difference to the world again. Did you know his mother was Mary Maxwell Gates, the first woman to chair the national United Way’s executive committee?
posted by wonderbunny at
10:19 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home