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Writing
about Gates and Microsoft, generally uncritically, has
become a minor industry in its own right and probably
one of the more profitable ones. This page offers a round-up
of some of the major books.
It covers -
the road to the future?
Business At Light Speed (New York: Viking 1999),
a communique to Planet Earth by Microsoft's CEO, confirms
criticisms of his The Road Ahead (New York: Viking
1995) that Mr Gates hadn't come to terms with the web.
Essential reading, but we don't recommend either book
for original insights or entertainment.
For a condensed version see Bill Gates Speaks (New
York: Wiley 1998) edited by Janet Lowe, although when
we're feeling particularly jaundiced about pronouncements
by the Big G we are inclined to think that there is more
sustenance in Harpo Speaks (London: Limelight 1988)
by Harpo Marx & Rowland Barber.
Jonathan Gatlin's hagiographic Bill Gates: The Path
To The Future (New York: Avon 1999) and Robert Slater's
Microsoft Rebooted: How Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer
Reinvented Their Company (New York: Portfolio 2004)
are thin, apparently wowed by an environment in which
a MS insider could describe the US$250 million marketing
campaign for Windows 95 as
what
God would have done to announce the Ten Commandments,
if only he had Bill Gates's money.
The
essays in The Future of Software (Cambridge: MIT
Press 1995) edited by Derek Leebaert suggest that the
'road ahead' won't be owned by Microsoft. Dean Takahashi's
Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft's Plan to Unleash
an Entertainment Revolution (Roseville: Prima 2002)
offers another perspective.
inside out
Paul Andrews' How the Web was Won: Microsoft from
Windows to the Web - The inside story of how Bill Gates
and his band of Internet idealists transformed a Software
Empire (New York: Broadway 1999) is well-researched
but distressingly reverent. Gates is not Mother Teresa,
despite efforts to buff & polish his public persona
through large-scale philanthropy - sometimes with strings
attached - involving his wife and father.
More sober reports are provided in Overdrive: Bill
Gates & the Race to Control Cyberspace (New York:
Wiley 1998) by James Wallace - updating his Hard Drive:
Bill Gates & the Making of the Microsoft Empire
(New York: Harper 1993) - and the portraits of Clark and
Netscape identified here.
The glossy Inside Out: Microsoft In Our Own Words
(New York: Warner 2000) is the sort of production that
gives propaganda a bad name; appropriately all Microsoft
employees are reputed to have received a copy. There's
another 'inside' account in Adam Barr's
Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters: What I Learned
in 10 Years As A Microsoft Programmer (New York: iUniverse
2001).
Barbarians Led by Bill Gates: Microsoft from the Inside
(New York: Owl 1999) by Jennifer Edstrom & Marlin
Eller presents a devastating view from the inside (Edstrom,
for example, is the daughter of Microsoft's chief spin
doctor), in contrast to the picture of vision, harmony
and exemplary ethics painted by Randall Stross in
The Microsoft Way: The Real Story of How the Company Outsmarts
Its Competition (Reading: Addison-Wesley 1996).
We would have preferred to have seen more analysis of
what the New York Times decries as vaporware, hidden
API's (bugs in MS code to trip up rivals' software) and
"ideas repeatedly, and blatantly, stolen from competitors"
- is MS unique or merely a particularly egregious example
of industry practice?
Nathan Myrhvold, dinosaur buff and one-time Gates lieutenant,
was profiled
in Wired in 1996. Paul Allen, Gates' partner
and Star Trek fan, had been anatomised in issues
2.08
and 7.12.
There is an account of Steve Ballmer in Bad Boy Ballmer:
The Man Who Rules Microsoft (New York: Morrow 2002)
by Fredric Maxwell.
Fred Moody's I Sing The Body Electronic (New York:
Viking 1995) gives an entertaining and, alas, apparently
accurate picture of life as a Microsoft net-slave. For
us it was more perceptive than G Pascal Zachary's
Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and
the Next Generation at Microsoft (New York: Warner
1996).
competition and antitrust
As John Heilemann notes in the excellent Pride Before
The Fall: The Trials of Bill Gates & The End of the
Microsoft Era (New York: HarperCollins 2001), while
the legal outcome of the case is likely to be indecisive,
the litigation has exposed Microsoft's spin machine and
demonstrated that at best Gates is economical with the
truth.
Wendy Rohm's The Microsoft File: The Secret Case Against
Bill Gates (New York: Times 1998) is a hard-hitting
account of corporate skullduggery and ineptitude, considered
by some US analysts to have been a trigger for the antitrust
action.
There is a defence in Winners, Losers & Microsoft:
Competitions & Antitrust in High Technology (Oakland:
Independent 1999) by Stan Liebowitz & Stephen Margolis,
recommended for fans and foes alike, and the less persuasive
The Keystone Advantage (Boston: Harvard Business
School Press 2004) by Marco Iansiti & Roy Levien -
Gates
and Microsoft pursued what may have been the most successful
keystone strategy of all time. We believe that it is
essential for the health and vigor of our economy that
the crucial roles played by these organizations be safeguarded
and reinforced.
The
technical literature on bundling, network effects and
other aspects of US v Microsoft is voluminous. One starting
point is Timothy Bresnahan's The Economics of The Microsoft
Case (PDF).
A case for splitting up MS is made in Competition,
Innovation & the Microsoft Monopoly: Antitrust in
the Digital Marketplace (Boston: Kluwer
1999) by Jeffrey Eisenach & Thomas Lenard.
A perspective is provided by Folded, Spindled &
Mutilated: Economic Analysis & US versus IBM (New
York: MIT Press 1983) by Franklin Fisher, John McGovern
& Joel Greenwood.
The Plot to Get Bill Gates: An Irreverent Investigation
of the World's Richest Man ... and the People Who Hate
Him (New York: Times 1999) is a wacky ride at high
speed past the egos and misdemeanors of poor Bill Gates
and the likes of fellow billionaire Larry Ellison of Oracle.
David Bank's Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled
the Future of Microsoft (New York: Free Press 2001)
is another work on the 'battle for the soul of MS', arguing
that a war to the death between its Windows and internet
wings hobbled the war with the federal government.
Ken Auletta's 50 page profile in The New Gilded Age:
Profiles from The New Yorker (New York: Random 2000)
is crisper. It is a succinct, and overall more insightful
version of the book-length treatment in his World War
3.0: Microsoft & Its Enemies (New York: Random
2000), which compares unfavourably with Heilemann.
A perspective on Microsoft's dominance of the desktop
is provided by Singer (in 1912 the seventh largest company
in the world by market capitalisation). After acquisition
in 1906 of competitor Wheeler & Wilson its share of
the US 'family' market reached nearly 60% and its share
of global markets climbed from an estimated 27% in the
1870s to 90% in 1913 (PDF).
and Corbis
Gates has also gained attention as owner of Corbis,
the major image library (intellectual property rights
ownership and licensing) described in a profile
on the Ketupa.net media resource site.
landmarks
1975 Microsoft founded
1983 Windows announced
1984 deal with IBM
1986 becomes public company (IPO raises US$61m)
1987 buys Forethought, developer of PowerPoint
1989 Gates creates Corbis
(separate from Microsoft)
1989 Microsoft Multimedia Division formed
1992 buys Fox Software
1993 releases Encarta encyclopaedia on CD-ROM
1993 Nathan Myhrvold's Road Kill on the Information
Highway memo
1994 Gates tells top executives that "sea change" is vital:
Microsoft will centre strategic planning on the internet
1994 agreement under consent decree with US Justice Dept
(DOJ) to change contracts with PC makers and eliminate
some restrictions on other software developers
1994 buys Softimage digital video business
1995 launches Windows 95
1995 establishes DreamWorks Interactive with DreamWorks
SKG
1995 establishes MSNBC
1995 abandons merger with Intuit
1996 buys Vermeer Technology (repackaged as Microsoft
FrontPage)
1996 forms Interactive Media Group
1996 Microsoft and NBC
create MSNBC all-news cable tv channel
1996 Microsoft creates Slate magazine
1997 buys internet video streaming developer VXtreme
1997 buys 10% of RealNetworks
1997 invests US$150m in Apple
1997 pays US$1bn for 11.5% stake in Comcast
1997 buys set-top box maker WebTV Networks for US$425m
1997 buys Hotmail for US$650m
1997 buys banner ad network LinkExchange
1997 launches Internet Explorer 4.0; is sued by DOJ
1998 invests US$200m in Qwest
1998 buys Hotmail for US $395m
1998 invests in UK-based Telewest
1998 invests in TV Cabo
1998 buys Firefly Network
1999 Asian joint venture with Global Crossing and Softbank
1999 buys 5% stake in UK-based NTL
cable tv network for US$500m
1999 partners with United Pan-Europe Communications cable
(for US$300m) and Liberty
Media in Europe
1999 invests US$600m in Nextel Communications
1999 invests US$250m in WebMD
1999 invests US$5bn in AT&T
2000 invests US$40m in CAIS Internet
2000 buys 26% of Gilat Satellite Networks broadband for
US$50m
2000 Gates steps aside as Microsoft chief executive
2001 sells stakes in TransPoint and Titus Communications
for US$400m
2001 buys Great Plains software
2002 Gates tells top executives that another "sea change"
is vital: Microsoft will now focus on security and regrets
pain caused to customers
2002 buys Navision for US$1.34bn
2003 sells sold its stake in Telewest
to US telephony operator IDT
other snapshots
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