Assignment 1
AIM: - Submit a profile summary (about 500 words) of a successful
entrepreneur indicating milestone achievements.
Bill Gates
Born: - 28 October 1955 (age 64 years)
Co-founder of Microsoft Corp.
Founded: 1975
Some see him as an innovative visionary who sparked a computer revolution.
Others see him as a modern-day robber baron whose predatory practices have
stifled competition in the software industry. Regardless of what his supporters and
detractors may think, few can argue that Bill Gates is one of, if not the most
successful entrepreneur of the 20th century. In just 25 years, he built a two-man
operation into a multibillion-dollar colossus and made himself the richest man in
the world somewhere along the way. Yet he accomplished this feat not by
inventing new technology, but by taking existing technology, adapting it to a
specific market, and then dominating that market through innovative promotion
and cunning business savvy.
Bill Gates was born October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington. He is famous for
building through technological innovation, great business strategies and aggressive
business tactics, the world's largest software business, Microsoft. He is also well
known for becoming the wealthiest person in the world in the process of building his
company.
Gates' first exposure to computers came while he was attending the prestigious
Lakeside School in Seattle. A local company offered the use of its computer to the
school through a Teletype link, and young Gates became entranced by the
possibilities of the primitive machine. Along with fellow student Paul Allen, he
began ditching class to work in the school's computer room. Their work would
soon pay off. When Gates was 15, he and Allen went into business together. The
two teens netted $20,000 with Traf-O-Data, a program they developed to measure
traffic flow in the Seattle area.
Despite his love and obvious aptitude for computer programming, and perhaps
because of his father's influence, Gates entered Harvard in the fall of 1973. By his
own admission, he was there in body but not in spirit, preferring to spend his time
playing poker and video games rather than attending class.
All that changed in December 1974, when Allen showed Gates a magazine article
about the world's first microcomputer, the Altair 8800. Seeing an opportunity,
Gates and Allen called the manufacturer, MITS, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and
told the president they had written a version of the popular computer language
BASIC for the Altair. When he said he'd like to see it, Gates and Allen, who
actually hadn't written anything, starting working day and night in Harvard's
computer lab. Because they did not have an Altair to work on, they were forced to
simulate it on other computers. When Allen flew to Albuquerque to test the
program on the Altair, neither he nor Gates was sure it would run. But run it did.
Gates dropped out of Harvard and moved with Allen to Albuquerque, where they
officially established Microsoft. MITS collapsed shortly thereafter, but Gates and
Allen were already writing software for other computer start-ups including
Commodore, Apple and Tandy Corp.
The duo moved the company to Seattle in 1979, and that's when Microsoft hit the
big time. When Gates learned IBM was having trouble obtaining an operating
system for its new PC, he bought an existing operating system from a small Seattle
company for $50,000, developed it into MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating
System), then licensed it to IBM. The genius of the IBM deal, masterminded by
Gates, was that while IBM got MS-DOS, Microsoft retained the right to license it
to other computer makers.
Much as Gates had anticipated, after the first IBM PCs were released, cloners such
as Compaq began producing compatible PCs, and the market was soon flooded
with clones. Like IBM, rather than produce their own operating systems, the
cloners decided it was cheaper to purchase MS-DOS off the shelf. As a result, MSDOS became the standard operating system for the industry, and Microsoft's sales
soared from $7 million in 1980 to $16 million in 1981.
Microsoft expanded into applications software and continued to grow unchecked
until 1984, when Apple introduced the first Macintosh computer. The Macintosh's
sleek graphical user interface (GUI) was far easier to use than MS-DOS and
threatened to make the Microsoft program obsolete. In response to this threat,
Gates announced that Microsoft was developing its own GUI-based operating
system called Windows. Gates then took Microsoft public in 1986 to generate
capital. The IPO was a roaring success, making Gates one of the wealthiest people
in the country overnight.
When Windows was finally released in 1985, it wasn't exactly the breakthrough
Gates had predicted. Critics claimed it was slow and cumbersome. Apple wasn't
exactly pleased either. They saw Windows as a rip-off of the Macintosh operating
system and sued. The case would drag on until the mid-1990s, when the courts
finally decided that Apple's suit had no merit.
Meanwhile, Gates worked on improving Windows. Subsequent versions of the
program ran faster and froze less frequently. Third-party programmers began
developing Windows-based programs, and Microsoft's own applications became
hot sellers. By 1993, Windows was selling at a rate of 1 million copies per month
and was estimated to be running on nearly 85 percent of the world's computers.
Microsoft solidified its industry dominance in the mid-1990s by combining
Windows with its other applications into "suites" and persuading leading
computer makers to preload their software on every computer they sold. The
strategy worked so well that by 1999 Microsoft was posting sales of $19.7
billion, and Gates' personal wealth had grown to a phenomenal $90 billion.
But with success has come scrutiny. Microsoft's competitors have complained
that the company uses its operating system monopoly to retard the
development of new technology -- a claim Gates soundly refutes.
Nevertheless, the U.S. Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against
the company in 1998 over its practice of bundling software with Windows.
In November 1999, a U.S. District Court ruled that Microsoft indeed had a
monopoly in the market for desktop-computer operating systems. The court
also found that Microsoft engaged in tactics aimed at snuffing out any
innovation that threatened its dominance of the multibillion-dollar computer
industry. A court settlement was approved in 2002 with Microsoft
consenting to curb some of its objectionable practices. Microsoft has since
been the focus of antitrust actions from the European Commission and
private litigants.
Attempting to explain his tremendous success, industry experts have pointed out
that there are really two Bill Gateses. One is a consummate computer geek who can
"hack code" with the best of them. The other is a hard-driven businessman who,
unlike most of his fellow Silicon Valley superstars, took readily to commerce and
has an innate instinct for the marketplace. This combination enabled Gates to see
what his competitors could not. While they were focusing on selling software, Gates
was focusing on setting standards, first with MS-DOS and later with Windows. The
standards he helped set shaped the modern computer industry and will continue to
influence its growth well into the next century.
ASSIGNMENT NO. 2
Name of Assignment:- Undertake SWOT analysis
to arrive at your business idea of a product/service.
DOP:-
DOS:-
Marks Obtained | Dated signature of
Teacher
Process
Related
(15) | Product
Related
(10) | Total
(25)
Assignment 2
Aim : Undertake SWOT analysis to arrive at your business idea of a
product/service