October 23, 2000. Copyright, 2000, Graphic News. All rights reserved

WORLDÕS RICHEST MAN TURNS 45 -- WITH A FIGHT ON HIS HANDS
By Mark Samms

LONDON, October 23, Graphic News:  THERE is a website called Bill GatesÕ Personal Wealth Clock. Ironically, almost every time somebody accesses it throughout the world, the counter clicks another few cents into his vast coffers.

As a result, Gates is now accepted as the richest man on the planet. Indeed, he now has so much money that precise totals have become academic. Somebody recently calculated that if his assets were frozen and he spent $1 million a day from now on, it would take him more than 60 years to dispose of his current fortune.

Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect for the Microsoft Corporation, was born on October 28, 1955. He grew up in Seattle with his two sisters. His father, William H. Gates II, is an attorney and his late mother, Mary, was a schoolteacher.

In 1975 Gates dropped out of Harvard University to devote all his energies to Microsoft (or Micro-soft as it was originally named), a company he had launched with a university friend, Paul Allen. It was based on their mutual conviction that personal computers would eventually be an indispensable addition to every office and home.

In the 1980s Microsoft began to develop and expand at an extraordinary rate, with its Windows operating system and its software applications such as Word and Internet Explorer dominating the fledgling industry. It became the biggest supplier of operating systems and other software for IBM PC compatibles.

Its market dominance, and willingness to use this strength to tighten its already powerful grip, began to cause resentment and suspicion among frustrated rivals. Eventually the U.S. Justice Department became involved, bringing an anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft in 1998 with the backing of 19 states.

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson accepted the Justice DepartmentÕs proposal that Microsoft be split into two independent companies -- one to control Windows and the other to control its software applications.
Jackson added, damningly: ÒMicrosoft as it is presently organized and led is unwilling to accept the notion that it broke the law or accede to an order amending its conduct... it has proved untrustworthy in the past.Ó

Microsoft immediately announced its intention to appeal, on the grounds that such a ruling was Òinconsistent with past decisions by the Appeal Court, with fundamental fairness and with the reality of the marketplace.Ó

Bill Gates has challenged the ruling, and legal experts say it will be years before appeals and counter-actions are finally resolved. He feels betrayed by a country that has always made a virtue of its belief in capitalism, free enterprise and the will of the market. And angry that in the immediate future his mind will be occupied by litigation rather than inspiration.
/ENDS