Martin Hayes
Bill Gates
Introduction
In this discussion will be writing about Bill Gates and his contributions to the Internet today. I will start by writing about where he came from, family, school, his ideas and the formation of the giant company Microsoft. His development of operating systems from the early stages of MS-DOS up to the present day where the latest computer are running Windows 7. Will also mention his donations to charity and foundation he created with his wife.
I will then write about what he did for the Internet as we know it today. The browser Internet Explorer, here I will mention the version of Internet explorer released over the year and how they helped the development of the Internet and where the browser is now in the browser war market.
Discussion
Bill Gates is the co-founder and chairman of Microsoft Corporation,one of the the most successful company in the world. It creates software innovative and user friendly.
He was born in Seattle, Washington on October 28th 1955. Father was a attorney and his late mother a schoolteacher. Bill found his interest in software and was programming at the age of thirteen.
In 1973, he went to Harvard University where he met Steve Ballmer who is the CEO of Microsoft now. He wrote version of programming language BASIC for the microcomputer. In 1975 he founded Microsoft Corporation with Paul Allen to market his version of BASIC called Microsoft BASIC. (1).
IBM wanted a operating system and went to Microsoft and got a licensed to use it as PC-DOS,which worked with Microsoft version called MS-DOS with every system sold.
In 1983 Microsoft released Windows 1.0 with GUI and multitasking but was not finished until 1985. The release of Windows 3.0 in 1990 was a success as it sold ten million copies in the first two years making Microsoft dominance in operating systems market.
Windows 95 was released in August 24 1995 which was very user friendly. It also did not need to have MS-DOS install first to get it to work. Windows 98 was released and has the Microsoft Internet browser , Internet Explorer build in. Then came Windows 2000 which was based on NT technology. Followed by XP which was released in October 2001. Next came Windows Vista which had lot of code bugs and problems with user,this has now been replace with Windows 7 which similar to Vista but runs on less resources. (2).
Bill founded a research program in 2000 with his wife called Bill & Melinda Foundation. He also donates large amounts of money to charity organisations. (3).
As it grew it share prices increased and Bill Gates became youngest billionaire at thirty one. (4).
Now in 2010 Bill Gates is the number one riches man in the world with $54 billion. This is $40 billion more that in 2009. (5).
Microsoft developed Internet Explorer program which dominated the Internet choice for GUI browser. It is used for a set of Internet based technologies that allow end users to browse web pages, send email and use multimedia features.
The first Internet Explorer was developed from Spyglass Mosaic which originally came from National Center for Super Computing Applications (NCSA). This browser was modified and released as Internet Explorer 1.0 in August 1995 for Windows 95.
Version 2.0 was released in November for both Windows 95 and NT. It had support for number of new technologies such as SSL, cookies and realaudio. (6).
Internet Explorer 3.0 was then given free of charge in August 1996 by being included with Windows 95,another version. This now had Internet Mail and address book, and was much closer to it rival Netscape.
Version 4 was released in September 1997 for Windows 95 and beta versions of Windows 98. This now had Outlook Express 4.0.It also came with programs like Frontpage Express and Real Player. Version 5 came in March 1999 with support for XML and enhanced support for CSS.It also had support for bi-directional text for international users who's language was written from right to left.
Version 6 was released to work with Windows XP in August 27 2001. It had privacy and security features which customers were more concerned with. They also added a pop-up blocker. (7).
Version 7 was released in October 2006 called Windows Internet Explorer as part of Windows Vista package and update for Windows XP. This has support for protocols such as RSS, protection against phishing and improved printing.
Version 8 was released in 2009 with better support for web standards than earlier versions. These changes allows it to pass the Acid2 test,where it support the Web Standards Project.
Version 9 is been currently developed which will have support for CSS 3 features,and faster JavaScript. (8).
Internet Explorer today has a 60.29% share in the market of web browser making it a great achievement for Bill Gates and Microsoft. This is down to the constant upgrades of web browsing and success of Windows. (9).
Conclusion
I have now discussed about Bill Gates and his contributions to the Internet as we know it today. From his early childhood up to now he has always been interested in the development of programming,and improving technologies, he has become a great business man and idol to many but his dominance in the market and power makes him unliked by many. He went to Harvard University where he created his own version of programming language called BASIC. He started up the Microsoft company with his childhood friend Paul Allen. He then created operating systems from MS-DOS in the early microcomputer to the Windows family with the modern GUI interface. His great vision in 1995 was to release web browser Internet Explorer with Windows 95 and allow end users to browse web pages, send email and use multimedia features. It was developed to compete with the likes of Netscape’s browser. With each version he improved on features and compatibility with the Web Standards Project rules, making the current version 8 the most compatibility today. It market share is around 60% but before Firefox it was in the high 90% area,this makes it that bit harder to compete,time will tell with version 9 how well Bill Gate and Microsoft will do in the browser war.
Bibliography
1.http://www.iim-edu.org/managementgurus/Bill_Gates.htm
2.http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventions/a/Windows_3.htm
3.http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventors/a/Bill_Gates.htm
4.http://www.velocityguide.com/computer-history/bill-gates.html
5.http://www.billgatesmicrosoft.com/networth.htm
6.http://www.nwnetworks.com/iehistory.htm
7.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Internet_Explorer
8.http://www.thewindowsclub.com/internet-explorer-turns-15-screenshots-history-highlights
9.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers