...how many people & businesses has this individual contributed to hurting as a leader of a criminally convicted corporation...

Here's to the all too familiar post existential crisis cleansing of the rich & famous...

Kinda mixed feelings. While he brought hard-nosed, monopolistic, take no prisoners business practices to the personal computer industry, stifled innovation and competition he also nonetheless (along with Steve Jobs) helped bring the power of the computer to the average citizen.

I personally think Microsoft is past it's prime and with Ballmer at the helm will slowly decline in importance and influence.

But the same could be said of a post Steve Jobs Apple I guess.

"Here's to the all too familiar post existential crisis cleansing of the rich & famous..."

Carnegie was a real sob when it came to workers and bought his way into the arts.
The list of sob's who go on to be "respected" is long.

Gates was mocked for many years by philanthropists, them wondering why the h*** doesn't this guy do something. Along came the true angel, Melinda, and he tagged along.

Odd how during the anti trust period ol' Bill suddenly made a big splash about his "charity" work.

my understanding is that he bought, not developed, MS-DOS. Is that correct? Either way, his single greatest achievement was the business deal with IBM to include it, and then marketing it to clone makers. The rest of MS history is tainted by anti-competitive monopolistic behavior. Hard to honor the retirement of such a man.

You'd be correct -- and that purchase was the source of Microsoft's first copyright infringement case, which they lost (to Digital Research).

The guy has donated what - 10s of BILLIONs of dollars? - and you're giving him grief? Say what you may, he's created Microsoft from the ground up. Pretty amazing achievement; I'm sure any of you would be proud of having done that!

After approached by IBM to create the OS for the PC, Microsoft bought QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System). Without riding on the back of IBM, Microsoft probably wouldn't exist today. And of course, Windows was created from a port of the Macintosh Toolbox API. Which was basically "given" to Microsoft so they could create a graphical version of Office for IBM compatibles as a counterpart to Office for Macs.

as you read these post, that when history is remembered clearly, it is not all too flattering for Bill!

The deal with IBM was smart, and he leveraged his power for the rest. Not in ways to get better deals like Dell does, but in way to rid themselves of competition. Which is wrong!!

Glad his wife had other plans, and perhaps some good will come out of his fortune. But that does not excuse how he made his fortune.

IMHO

"I'm sure any of you would be proud of having done that!"

what part of convicted thief are you missing? proud you say?

and what the h*** does "BILLIONS" have to do with anything? i'd wager there are many who's charity contributions are pretty damn close percentage wise when it comes to donations/net worth.

Get the facts straight. I'm no big MS fan (even though my initials are the same-dang!) but the company was found guilty in a civil case. Big difference.