Adios BillG-- you were relevant and fun

Nothing goes on forever, not Bill Gates at Microsoft, not even inshore tuna runs just beyond La Jolla Beach.

Microsoft without Bill Gates is going to be a much different place and probably a much more aggressive competitor. I'm an unashamed Microsoft supporter. Over the last 20 years I've seen numerous competitiors demonize Gates and Microsoft while they jump up and down saying "Our product is better and Microsoft is an unfair competitor."

And the noise level from the collective crybaby dot coms drowned out an important fact. Business may be fun, but making a profit for your stock holders, employees and invstors is a serious undertaking. If you're not turning a profit, don't expect to be taken seriously. And only  a few of the companies who cried they were being crushed by Microsoft were profitable. I've always laughed at industry conferences when some temporary luminary would stand up and attack Gates, as if he ran the entire company by himself. Or when they tried to project an image that "our technology is so damned good and we're so bright, we can kill Microsoft and they know it."

Case in Point, Netscape:

Hey, where's Netscape today?  oh that's right, they were broken up, their capital equipment was sold at auction and much of their technology is at AOL or Sun.

And what put Netsacpe on the slippery slope to hell?

As much as Netscapes former executives, backers and consultants would have you believe that it was Gates,  pitchfork in one hand, swishing competitors aside with swipes of his mighty pointed tail and then stomping on them with mighty kicks from his cloven heels, that killed them. More often that's pretty far from the truth.  Most often companies that wanted to compete against and overtake Microsoft lost the race due o numerous bad decisions.

Microsoft didn't kill Netscape, flawed decisions did. One of mya favorite Netscape decisions was one made at the highest levels of the company to release  a browser that included  word processor, spreadsheet and presentation graphics modules (all of which are core Microsoft revenue makers. Netscape execs and marketing staff though they would topple Microsoft and that there plans to turn Netscape into an online commerce giant  would give them added street cred.

All that Netscape's failed strategies did though was force Bill Gates to do something he's the best in the world at-- strategic mid- and long-term planning. Gates launched his strategy, Netscape died and the rest is history.  but it wasan't Gates that slew Netscape, it was the company's own actions.

For many years I would sit through meeting after meeting with start-ups laden with one-time Netscape managers. Repeatedly I would hear about how evil Microsoft and Bill Gates were. It r eally pissed me off, because the entrepreneurs had been blinded by drinking their own poisonous KoolAid. I always wanted to ask the management teams of startups loaded with ex Netscapers, if "They could blow up their new company faster than they did Netscape."

I never asked the question, but I thought a lot about it. and in the following years all but a couple of those start-ups have gone fins up, victims of bad business plans that thought clicks would be equal to dollars, or which launched unproven technology or which based their business on solutions for which there were no real immediate problems. That's not a mistake Bill Gates made very often, although I still smile when I think about Microsoft BOB and other attempts by the company to implement social interfaces.

What gets forgotten in discusisons about Microsoft is a simple proposition-- millions of people and legions os businessses have put their faith in the company by purchasing and using its products.It's been Bill Gates, his vision, and his willingness to force the company into spending money to turn R&D projects into products that's been a driving force at Microsoft.

There's another side of Gates I often think of. And this image brings me into this story. Over the years, I've done numerous interviews with Gates, sometimes they were formal, other times they came about as a result of my improbably being near him in a public or semi-public setting. Even when it seems like he's been physically uncomfortable, he's always engaging and takes the time to provide direct and expanded answers to questions. He's fun to talk to and he doesn't talk down. If he thinks you may not understand something, he provides logical explanations.  And he's not above admitting he made a mistake. Or laughing at himself.

If you've never seen them, make an effort to view anhy of the severalMicrosoft parody videos that Microsot made and privately showed o small audiences in the late 1990's.  My all time favorite is one that's a send-up of an infomercial starring Bill Gates called Web of Wealth. i give it two thumbs up.

But even in the formal setting of an interview in his office, with PR minders at hand, it's hard not to see the personal side of Gates.  He has a nice desk, that's often cluttered with the business at hand. But one of the first things i've always noticed about his office is the credenza bewhind his desk, on which sit numerous snapshots of his children, wife, sisters, mother and father and momentos of his private life.  It's the contents of credenza that speaks the loudest about citizen Gates, his values and what he may do going forward.

I can't help but be impressed by Gates' determination to use his personal fortune and very public image to help provide solutions for vey real problems for current and future citizen's of the world. There have been very few people in the world of technology who have dedicated their fortunes and lives to issues as important as those being addressed by the William and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The only thing that comes to my mind, that's even close,  is what Jim Barkesdale did for the schools and students of his native Mississippi.

I wish more technologists would be like Gates or Jim Barksdale, take a look around the world or their home regions and invest in solutions to real problems. But I'm not going to hold my breath for anyone to even come close to what Bill Gates can and will do. Too many of our technologists are more invested in the big score-- finding a solution to the one big problem rather than many solutions to many small problems that cummulaitvely have a huge impact on our lives.--Jim Forbes, from rural,northern, San Diego County.