vnunet.com comment: Bill Gates powers down

Bill Gates officially stepped down from Microsoft last week

Like it or loath it Microsoft has been pivotal in computing history, and it will be generations before the company becomes a footnote in history.

Its course has been inextricably linked to the rise of the computing industry and it is fair to say that Microsoft has done more than any other corporate to promote the computer.

On a personal level I have been using computers with Microsoft code for over 25 years and have watched the company grow and change, sharing its triumphs and tragedies.

So as Bill Gates steps down it is time for me to take a personal reflection on the good and bad things for which Gates and Microsoft are responsible.

GOOD

1. Providing a unified computing environment
We would not have the computing industry we have today without Microsoft. Having a single operating system dominating the personal computer market has meant that scores of software developers had a consistent set of standards to work with and a mass market in which to sell their products.

This has led to much dislike of Gates by some, but without it we'd have a hodgepodge of competing operating systems with small but distinct ghettos of software developers and users.

This would have made learning to use a computer much tougher and would definitely have harmed the take-up of PCs around the world.

You could argue, and you'd be correct, that DOS (and later Windows) is not the most technically adept of operating systems.

Indeed much of Microsoft's business plan is based not around providing the best software but providing code that is good enough.

There have been better operating systems, OS/2 and BeOS spring to mind instantly, but none has been as successful.

But the effect of this unified environment was not only good for the software industry but for hardware as well.

The continually falling price of PCs is down to the manufacturing process becoming commoditised thanks to the single set of hardware specifications that Microsoft built.

Now any factory worker or home enthusiast with a few days' training can put together a PC, and the result is cheaper computers.

Compare this with Apple's approach of keeping the entire process in-house and you'll see the difference.

Apple kit is expensive and, while it works beautifully, you can't expect someone on a low income to spend money for food on a computer just because Steve Jobs thinks his vision is better.

Gates has often been accused of wanting to control all of the software in the word but Jobs wants to control all the software and all the hardware, and in an open market that dog just won't hunt.