Microsoft is the borg of the computing industry. They don't innovate, they simply take other's ideas and replicate them. Gates is not a magician - he was at the right place at the right time, and he was willing to lead an organization that ruthlessly took advantage of others ideas to build an empire. I suspect that if Microsoft had never existed, technology would be further advanced, since startups would have been able to develop their ideas instead of being taken over by the borg as soon as their ideas started getting popular.

At least Microsoft still has Ballmer to provide spittle-flecked bullying and deranged sweat spatter.

So how would they have been further advanced? Lets look at an area where Microsoft ostensibly had strong competition from the start: Databases. There were quite a few database systems that worked either on small scale, competitive with Access or large scale, competitive with SQL Server.

On the small scale side there was Paradox, Alpha and a host of lesser known products. Access was actually the inferior product for quite awhile, but the others didn't keep improving and Microsoft did. Paradox ended up biting the dust when they failed to come up with a decent graphic interface. Now Access is the best small scale database out there, not because MS bought out the competition, but because they innovated and the rest didn't bother.

On the large scale side we have Oracle and Sybase and some other lesser known systems. Sybase crashed and burned and the only reason people still use Oracle is because it isn't Microsoft. Oracle hasn't made a significant improvement in over a decade and continues to insist that serious flaws are intentional parts of the design. Microsoft, on the other hand, has continued to improve and innovate.

Microsoft's owning the OS had nothing to do with the failure of these other systems, nor did MS buy them out. IBM tried to compete with MS in multiple arenas and failed every time. Not because MS bought IBM, but because they continued to improve their product with every passing year while others relied on "but we're not Microsoft!"

Tell me, why couldn't Word Perfect, Lotus 123, Harvard Graphics and others continue to compete against MS? And keep clear of conspiracy theories. Plainly put, they didn't bother to continue to improve their products and let commanding leads in market share fade away.

To Hell with him.

Your post leaves out the most obvious way that MS gets rid of competition without buying them: package and prosper. Buying Windows? Buy MS Office at the same time and get a significant discount. And for another small increase in price, that MS Office will include Access, so you don't have to buy a separate small scale database solution. Innovation has nothing to do with it...have you used Access lately? I haven't used 2007 yet, but 2003 still has the look, feel, and user friendliness of a Windows 95 era program. As for large scale databases, I don't have the numbers but my personal experience in both the business and academic worlds has been that MS SQL is a presence, but is hardly dominant.

Basically your post attributes business failure as failure to innovate, without providing any evidence to support such a connection. For a long time, even after the switch to GUIs, WordPerfect and Word were technologically comparable, but MS was winning the marketing war, partly thanks to their ability to package a larger array of products. Market share and innovation were not related. Of course, people only remember the last death throws of WP, which were lagging, but this could just as easily be because of lack of funds.

I don't think MS is as horrible a beast as some people do, but blind apologies like yours are enough to drive a person mad.

Do you think Bill Gates will "pull a Barron Hilton" maneuver and leave the bulk of his wealth to something other than his family?

Do you think Bill Gates will "pull a Barron Hilton" maneuver and leave the bulk of his wealth to something other than his family?

It Bill Gates had Oprah's money, he'd jump out the window.

I will miss Bill Gates the same way I would miss a really bad case of the stomach flu, or a parasitic infection, or maybe the plague.

I've never been a Bill Gates fan. I've spent too many years of my working life dealing in the crap world of MS products that never did work as advertised. Gahhh! Horrible!

Gates has always been overrated as an innovator, in my opinion. His so called "vision" of technology always seemed to be focused more on having Microsoft dominate whatever emerged than having the world benefit from the technology itself. If Microsoft couldn't dominate it, well, lots of luck seeing it get much play in the marketplace. I can't remember the exact words, but early in his career he supposedly took as his motto something like, "Microsoft everywhere!" with the unspoken threat right behind it "Whether you want it or not." Resistance is futile.

But in the past few years, I have to admit that Gates has seemed to mellow. He's started his foundation, and he is one of the few billionaires on the planet that seems to understand that the purpose of having money is not just so one can acquire more money. The video was actually pretty funny in spots, and Gates seems ready to do some good in the world, so I'm willing to say, farewell, Bill. Enjoy your retirement, go forth and do good.

Steve Ballmer still makes my skin crawl, however.

The reason that companies didn't innovate was because Microsoft put them out of business as soon as they started to be successful. The only "innovation" that resulted from Microsoft's business practices was the panicked frenzy of start-ups trying to stay one step ahead of Goliath, but even that eventually faded as potential innovators realized that as soon as they started to show a profit they would be put out of business by Microsoft. Apple has served as the creative arm of Microsoft for decades, and that is only because Microsoft allows it to exist it in order to prevent the inevitable anti-trust suits that would be brought (and won) if Apple ceased to exist.

Imagine what our world would be like if Microsoft had supported all of the innovators instead of absorbing them or putting them out of business...