Is Bill Gates the devil?

[counterattackii]

I'm only asking for opinions, I dont think I have to say anything else.

[Undead Dude]

Nah, but he does have a business relationship with him. :)

[Babar714]

If you were the devil, would you take that form?

[Stoid]

Well, technically he's the Anti-Christ.

By converting the letters of his current name to the ASCII-values and adding his (III), you get the
following:


B 66

I 73

L 76

L 76

G 71

A 65

T 84

E 69

S 83

+ 3

--------------

666 !!


Some might ask, "How did Bill Gates get so powerful?" Coincidence? Or just the beginning of
mankind's ultimate and total enslavement??? YOU decide!

It looks like well-known OS's also fall into the same category:


M S - D O S 6 . 2 1

77+83+45+68+79+83+32+54+46+50+49 = 666

W I N D O W S 9 5

87+73+78+68+79+87+83+57+53+1 = 666

------------------
*************
We do precision guesswork

[Foghorn]

I thought Kyle's mom was the devil... or is she just a big, fat bitch? - Cartman

[Babar714]

Shuttup, Fatass!
-Kyle

[theuglytruth]

Let me ask all you anti-Bill Gates rocket scientists this: if Bill Gates were not the most successful businessman of all time, would you be still saying he was the Devil?

People love to knock the guy on top. I've heard the same crap about the Rockefellers and the Kennedys. The guy was a genius who came up with a great product and did good. What in the hell is wrong with that??

------------------
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/parliament/1685/

[Omniscient]

Hee Hee

<bgsound src="http://www.southparkspot.com/southwavs/kylesmom.wav">

If that don't work: <big><blink><font color=red>Click Me (http://www.southparkspot.com/southwavs/kylesmom.wav)</font></blink></big>

[Stoid]

Hey, Ugly Truth... you are apparantly misinformed. Bill Gates didn't come up with, invent, or design diddly squat. His "genius" is in knowing how to exploit other people's good ideas, and threaten and manipulate other people and businesses to get what he wants.

I don't think there's a whole lot to admire in that.

[StrTrkr777]

Let's step back for a minute.

What is the job of any president/CEO? To make the company profitable and give the investors a good return on their investment. I am not saying that all that Bill has done was ethical, but he just did what the others around him and before him had done.

Apple's beloved Jobs stole the idea of a "windowed" OS and the idea of the mouse from the folks at Xerox. Not exactly a saintly thing to do.

The guy that started Lotus was a former employee of the company that created VisaCalc. At a minimum he copied what they had done and maybe even took some code, then when Quatro Pro tried to use the same menuing as Lotus, he took them to court.

My point is that it has happened many times in this industry. And Bill has done what any president/CEO is expected to do and has done it well. He has made many stockholders into millionares.

Most of what he has done was purchase the best. He purchased the code for DOS to work with IBM. IBM agreed without purchasing from him. They got him to work with them on OS/2, they should have had a better non-compete contract. Yes, he used the "windowed" OS that he saw Jobs using, but again Jobs stole that from Xerox, so Bill just returned the favor. He may not have had any original ideas, but he brought the PC to the masses, he recognized the best and bought it and he has been a marketing genius. Something that IBM, Lotus, Apple, etc. have not done well.

Completely ethical? No. The Anti-Christ? Certainly not.

Jeffery

[voltaire]

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Let me ask all you anti-Bill Gates rocket scientists this: if Bill Gates were not the most successful businessman of all time, would you be still saying he was the Devil?

People love to knock the guy on top. I've heard the same crap about the Rockefellers
and the Kennedys. The guy was a genius who came up with a great product and did good. What in the hell is wrong with that??
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I can't help but loathe a guy who swindeled his own partner, Paul Allen, out of his fair share. When they started the company together, Paul Allen was making money for also doing the programming, since Paul was making more money, Bill demanded and got something like a 65/35 split(I don't remember the exact figure) even though Paul was doing more of the work. After years of this exploitation, I guess Bill felt a tinge of guilt and gave Paul something like a 60/40 split, still retaining his majority to this day, effectively cheating his longtime friend and partner out of billions.

[astorian]

I have no great love for Bill Gates, who has shown himself to be a swine in many respects. But the people who REALLY loathe him are way off base. In general, they're either

1) Apple fanatics, who think the Macintosh SHOULD be the center of the universe, and resent Gates for helping make the PC so dominant... or

2) Left-wingers who hate ANYBODY who makes big bucks working the capitalist system.... or

3) SUPER computer geeks who liked it when THEY were the only ones who had computers or knew anything about them, and are REALLY ticked off that nowadays ANY moron, no matter how technologically illiterate, can buy and use a computer.

Now, as for the Apple fans, all I can say is: suit yourself! If you like tha Apple better, by all means keep using it. But for crying out loud, quit bellaching! I don't hear fans of the Betamax whining about how the VHS underminded their superior product! And what's more, Steve Jobs was at LEAST as big a "thief" as Bill Gates was. I put "thief" in quotes because, frankly, I don't think EITHER Jobs or Gates deserves that title. I merely say that if you condemn Microsoft for "stealing" MS-DOS, you have to condemn Jobs too, for his thefts from Xerox.

Truth is, neither man is a thief. Rather, I compare both to another brilliant industrailist: Henry Ford. Did Ford invent the internal combustion engine? Nope- the technology already existed. DId Henry Ford invent the automobile? Nope- lots of people had already built "horseless carriages." Did Ford invent the assembly line? Nope- that already existed.

So, if Ford didn't really invent anything, why is he a genius? Because, unlike the other inventors of his time, Ford was smart enough to see that there was a huge MASS market for automobiles, and that the assembly line could be used to make practical, functional cars that ANY American could use.

Sure, DOS existed before Bill Gates came along, but what was being done with it? NOTHING!!! Gates was the one smart enough to see the potential in DOS, and how it could be used to make PCs powerful. In the same way, Xerox had all kinds of great technology, but no vision to see what could be done with it. I don't fault Jobs for taking it- I credit him with being smart enough to see its untapped potential.

[Satan]

No.

[counterattackii]

(LOL @ Satans' answer)

[Undead Dude]

I think that Gates is a shrewd businessman with a good deal of foresight. However, I when it comes to shady business practices, saying that "everyone else is doing it" doesn't defend it. MS tried that in court, and it sure didn't fly then.

As far as the development of the GUI, Xerox gave away the golden goose, and no one should be blamed for that but Xerox. That's not where we should point fingers at MS or Apple.

Does anyone here remember the whole affair with Stacker? Remember the rush to put out MSDOS 6.2 when courts concluded that MS literally stole code from Stacker?

And of course the most serious issue with MS has been the issue of leveraging the market share of Windows to push competitors out of the market and to force their will upon businesses. Of course they are facing that issue in court as well.

You might say that other companies would do that if they were in such a position of power. Well, if they were, and they did, they would gain the same reputation that MS has.

Oh, and speaking of the Rockfellers, have we forgotten that some the anti-trust laws that exist today were inspired by the business practices of the Rockefellers?

[threemae]

Anti-trust, come on, it is crap. The government's own star witnesses admitted that end-user technology was transforming into cross platform Internet products such as Java although not specifically Java.

P.S. Face it, the sun-coalition is dead.

------------------
There is no safety for honest men but by believing all possible evil of evil men.

--Edmund Burke

[ThufferinThuccotash]

Topic: Is Bill Gates the devil?

If I were Satan, I would be insulted.

------------------
TT

"Believe those who seek the truth.
Doubt those who find it." --Andre Gide

[EvilGhandi]

That this question was allowed to survive is testimony enough. Bill runs the SDMB!
Dump this thread to the pointless crap forum.

[dougie_monty]

I think Bill Gates wants to get all the money he can while he's alive,
so he'll be real rich when he's dead.

[Undead Dude]

The government's own star witnesses admitted that end-user technology was transforming into cross platform Internet products such as Java although not specifically Java. -- threemae
Which has little to do with the real reasons that MS has been in legal trouble.

MS made the installation of IE a condition to allowing many vendors to sell Win95. This action was crippling to Netscape. When this was ruled to be an unfair business practice, MS attempted to weasel out of it on a technicality by trying to make the browser a component rather than an application.

MS might not have a full fledged monopoly, but they do have enough market share for them to practice in such a way that is very bad for the free enterprise system.

Cross platform products have yet to have much mainstream success. Java has been an attempt at such an idea, but it has had very limited success beyond its use for applets in web browsers.

And of course speaking of Java, MS also attempted to hijack Java (ala J++) to try to get Java programs out and in use that would only run on the Windows platform.

[JoeyBlades]

StrTrkr777 writes:


Apple's beloved Jobs stole the idea of a "windowed" OS and the idea of the mouse from the folks at Xerox. Not exactly a saintly thing to do.


Actually, it went something like this:
Jobs: "Hey, neat. Can I have this?"
Xerox: "That useless crap? Sure take it."

BTW, Jobs is low on my list of people earmarked for sainthood, just slightly higher than Gates.


As to the original question:

No. I have to believe that Satan would not be that incompetant. He would deliver products on time, they would work flawlessly, and people would never utter the phrase "Oh my God!" while using them.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if ultimately Bill has to address himself as "The Gates of Hell"...

Just kidding, I'm sure he's really a nice guy.

Hmmm... now which part was I just kidding about? I forgot...

[JimFox]

His inability & reluctance to make DOS & Windows Y2K compatible may be the largest factor in Y2K meltdown. Mac & Unix don't have a Y2K problem, supposidly.

------------------
www.cyberthings.com (http://www.cyberthings.com)

[moriah]

No.

The same for any inquiries concerning an admirable moral code or redeeming qualities.

If you're looking to avoid lining Gates' pockets any more than necessary, but feel compelled to stay with Windows, try Corel's WordPerfect Suite. It is just as good, if not better than MS's Word, Excel, or Office.

Use Netscape over IE. AOL over MSN. Don't make the jerk any richer.

Ted Turner is a fine man (esp compare to Gates). Just wanted to throw that in case anyone wants to accuse me of being plutoclastic. Watch CNN over MSNBC.

Peace.

[John W. Kennedy]

Except that Ted Turner, now that he's busy running Time-Warner (grin) let a bunch of ignorant crackers take over his home stations, thus the Crusade fiasco.

------------------
John W. Kennedy
"Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays."
-- Charles Williams