*cough* Apple copied Xerox....
Bill Gates retires from Microsoft
- Thread starter Furton
- Start date
*cough* Apple copied Xerox....
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 29 Mar 2003
- Posts
- 57,639
- Location
- Stoke on Trent
It was Xerox and I believe he also nicked the mouse off them.
Xerox invented a ton of stuff, including ethernet/WIMP interfaces/mouse. Pretty much everyone copied them, truly amazing research there at that time.
MS basically purchased 86-DOS and turned it into MS-DOS.. Gates did well for MS business wise (vendor lock in!) but it was people like paul allen who did the bulk of the initial code afaik.
Last edited:
you have to laugh at all the knockers - it's easy to sit back reclining on your chair throwing down cheese puffs and cola and say you have all the answers.
to actually do what he's done (regardless of whether or not you agree with supposed strong arm tactics) and then donate all that money to worthwhile charities says a lot about him.
i spend a lot more of my time in the linux and open source environments these days but i still take my hat off to the man for what he's accomplished.
to actually do what he's done (regardless of whether or not you agree with supposed strong arm tactics) and then donate all that money to worthwhile charities says a lot about him.
i spend a lot more of my time in the linux and open source environments these days but i still take my hat off to the man for what he's accomplished.
lulwut?
Caporegime
- Joined
- 28 Jun 2007
- Posts
- 52,812
- Location
- Tamworth, UK
Legend.
He's not dead.
Bill Gates is no hero. He's a successful business man, and definitely a philanthropist, two things I can both admire. But his company has done more to stifle innovation and development of technology than anything else. If MS didn't invent it they were pretty much not interested (see their late entry into the browser/internet market). And the mess that were their office file formats has resulted in the abomination that is OOXML, an incomplete unimplementable "standard" foisted on the world through bribery and corruption. He's probably a great guy but I don't think the IT industry is better off for MS having been as big as it was/is.
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 17 Nov 2003
- Posts
- 36,747
- Location
- Southampton, UK
Ok, MS hasn't always been perfect, but in the grand scheme of things they've done much more to benefit the IT industry then it has to stifle innovation.
How many people who **** off MS' innovation have actually visited the MS research website?
Burnsy
Yeah, they sure do have a habit of buying up interesting companies. I also honestly don't believe that we're in a better state now than we would have been if MS had had to compete more. UNIX and the internet have shown that it is a better market when you have open standards and people compete on the implementation.
Me, I have actually been to MSR cambridge.... MSR is totally different from MSFT which is where your OS development goes on. Sure they got people like Hoare, Lamport, Needham etc who I have a lot of respect for but what goes on there is totally different. Technically MS have some good acomplishments but they do not compare to other research establishments like xerox parc, IBM (at that time) mentioned above. In the grand scheme of things there are people in this industry who have contributed more to this industry and are far less recognised/wealthy than gates.
I agree with bam0 here. Gates is a very successful business man but the IT industry is no better off in my option with Microsofts anti-competition tactics.
Last edited:
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 17 Nov 2003
- Posts
- 36,747
- Location
- Southampton, UK
I have one main problem with the open source movement and that way of development. Yes, you can get get some very innovative ideas from open source projects but an inherent problem with that is that you get no overall long term vision. MS has the ability to move the industry forward in a cohesive manner. A thing that you just don't get if rely on open source projects.
I think that only one other company has contributed to the long term evolution of the IT industry in a similar fashion to MS and that's Big Blue.
Oh and lets make one thing clear. I'm referring to MS as a whole here and not necessarily specifically Bill Gates.
Burnsy
Last edited:
Xerox PARC, bell labs (AT&T).
Last edited:
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 17 Nov 2003
- Posts
- 36,747
- Location
- Southampton, UK
All big contributors no doubt, just not quite on the scale of MS or IBM.
Although on second thought, I may possibly accept that Bell Labs may be close ot gaining entry to that exclusive club. Primary due to C and UNIX
Burnsy
Last edited:
So what exactly have MS invented which is revolutionary? (I find it hard to put them up there with people who invented human interface devices, ethernet, the first GUI, the language pretty much all systems programming is done in.) IBM on the other hand contributed a hell of a lot to the advancement of our industry.
I guess they pioneered vendor lock in and forceful upgrades =]
Last edited:
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 17 Nov 2003
- Posts
- 36,747
- Location
- Southampton, UK
It's not necessarily what they've invented that it's important. Like IBM they've shaped the industry into something cohesive. MS helped introduce the concept of software as a separate entity to merely an add on to hardware. A concept that it taken for granted today. They've also been a major player to make the microcomputer a mainstream consumer device by providing a ubiquitous platform; without which software wouldn't have prospered like it has. It doesn't matter whether the dominant OS is Windows, MacOS or Unix, the fact that there is a common platform has done wonders for software development.
Burnsy
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 17 Nov 2003
- Posts
- 36,747
- Location
- Southampton, UK
