UPDATE: AMD and Nvidia aim to wrest control of a crucial PC specification from Intel, arguing that the chip giant is trying to box them out as they move to a new era of faster peripherals.
In play is the USB 3.0 specification, a next-generation high-speed connection standard due in 2009. It is significant not only because all future PCs and devices will use connectors based on the standard but because it will offer 10 times the speed of USB 2.0--used in virtually all PCs introduced in the last few years--or roughly 5 gigabits per second.
Intel formed the USB Implementers Forum in 1995 with other industry players, including Microsoft, "to support and accelerate adoption of USB-compliant peripherals," according to an overview of the specification on the chipmaker's Web site.
"The challenge is that Intel is not...giving the specification to anybody that competes with CPUs and chipsets," said a source close to AMD who is familiar with the dispute.
As a result, AMD, Nvidia, Via Technologies and others (not yet specified) could be driven to create their own USB 3.0 specification. "We are going to be forced to create a secondary specification" that would be introduced along with the Intel spec, the source close to AMD said. "To create a new open host controller standard for USB 3.0."
"We are starting development on it right now," the AMD source added. The first meeting of members of the alternate "open" specification is slated to take place next week, a source close to Nvidia said. "We fully intend to productize this spec."
Nvidia and AMD are offering no official comment.
Intel, meanwhile, says it's moving with all due speed.
"Just as with previous generations of USB, Intel is working hard to get the complete spec to the industry with as little delay as possible in order to drive the wide adoption of USB 3.0," the company said in a statement.
The USB 3.0 specification is hammered out in the USB 3.0 Promoters Group, in which Intel is a working fellow. Other members include Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, NEC, and NXP Semiconductors.
A source close to Intel said AMD and Nvidia are being disingenuous about what they're actually seeking. In short, AMD and Nvidia are seeking technology--the "host controller" specification--that Intel says is beyond the USB 3.0 specification. "Think of it as a guide to building hardware for USB 3.0. This is the part that Intel invests dollars and engineering man hours in and then licenses to the industry (so far, for zero dollars). We will give this out as soon as it is finished (or close to finished)," the Intel source said.
Intel is slated to release the specifications later this year or the beginning of next year. The problem, as AMD and Nvidia see it, is that Intel would virtually own the USB 3.0 market--a powerful competitive advantage--for many months if they waited for Intel to release the so-called host controller layer specification. "Tack on six to nine months. Then we get USB 3.0," the AMD source said.
This person described USB 3.0 as "essentially PCI Express over a cable. And that intellectual property came from the PCI SIG"--the point being that Intel does not have a large intellectual property stake to defend. PCI Express is a data transfer specification for add-in card slots in desktop PCs today. The PCI SIG (Special Interest Group) promotes the Peripheral Component Interconnect specification, a standard used in all PCs today.
Intel doesn't see it this way. "We do the work--at this point it's not an industry effort anymore--and then (we) hand over the work for free without any licensing fees."
"Intel only gives it out once it's finished. And it's not finished." said the source. "If it was mature enough to release, it would be released." (AMD and Nvidia claim that Intel has working silicon and thus that the part of specification they are seeking is mature enough for release.)
"If you have an incomplete spec and give it out to people, these people will build their chipsets and you'll end up with chipsets that are incompatible with devices. That's what (Intel) is trying to avoid."
One possible reason for the frustration, the source said, is that Intel is "a little bit behind and that's what might be causing some of the resentment. You could take the opinion that Intel is giving stuff out for free and people are complaining because (Intel) isn't giving it out fast enough," the source close to Intel said.
"We're not doing anything differently now than we did with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1," he added.
AMD rejects this argument because people at the company were around when the earlier 1.0 USB specification came out and claim that Intel stonewalled back then too. Intel denies the assertion.
A separate specification--though designed to be compatible with the Intel USB 3.0 spec--has the potential to create incompatibilities, the source close to AMD said. "This is not good for users. But we have no choice."
Related computer blog: http://cpu-hitech.blogspot.com/
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9961783-7.html
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Amazon working again, but what went wrong?
A two-hour Amazon.com outage is over. Now on to the post-mortem: what triggered the problem?
Amazon declared itself clear of the problem this afternoon. "The Amazon retail site was down for approximately two hours earlier today beginning around 10:25 a.m. The site (is) back up," the company said in statement.
But as to the explanation, the company only hinted that its complicated computing infrastructure was, unsurprisingly, a culprit.
"Amazon's systems are very complex and on rare occasions, despite our best efforts, they may experience problems. We work to minimize any disruption and to get the site back as quickly as possible," the company said, declining to comment further.
Human error?
The most likely culprit was simple human error, in the estimation of Shawn White, director of operations for Keynote Systems, which monitors Web site availability.
"Some engineer might have made a particular change, not knowing it could cause a trickle-down effect" that eventually brought down the site.
For example, he said, somebody in charge of maintenance might have been directing Internet traffic to a particular group of servers, but selected the wrong group.
But at Amazon? "What I find still so surprising is it happened in the middle of the day. Typically you do that in off-peak hours," White said. "They rank on the top with performance and availability, consistently, time and time again."
Network attack?
Another possible explanation is an attack such as the distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack that struck Amazon and other high-profile sites in 2000. White thinks it unlikely, though, that a crushing load of network traffic brought Amazon down.
"These guys are experts at dealing with flash floods of users," including those that routinely arrive during peak shopping days. "Usually, when you see a site going under because of traffic issues or a denial-of-service attack, you see a gradual slowdown in performance and drop in availability. Here we saw at 10:16 a.m. it completely dropped off 100 percent."
Soups Ranjan, a senior member of the technical staff of network protection and management company Narus, hasn't yet found any attack evidence.
"It doesn't seem to be the result of a network-initiated attack, at least from my preliminary analysis from our probes," Ranjan said.
Human error may not sound as gripping a tale as a network attack, but there's plenty of drama for the people responsible. And it's the career-limiting variety of drama, said Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff, who hazarded a guess that Amazon's problem involved its front-end Web servers.
The security group of WebSense, a Web site and communications protection company, also saw no evidence Amazon's problem was security related.
Related computer blog: http://cpu-hitech.blogspot.com/
Amazon declared itself clear of the problem this afternoon. "The Amazon retail site was down for approximately two hours earlier today beginning around 10:25 a.m. The site (is) back up," the company said in statement.
But as to the explanation, the company only hinted that its complicated computing infrastructure was, unsurprisingly, a culprit.
"Amazon's systems are very complex and on rare occasions, despite our best efforts, they may experience problems. We work to minimize any disruption and to get the site back as quickly as possible," the company said, declining to comment further.
Human error?
The most likely culprit was simple human error, in the estimation of Shawn White, director of operations for Keynote Systems, which monitors Web site availability.
"Some engineer might have made a particular change, not knowing it could cause a trickle-down effect" that eventually brought down the site.
For example, he said, somebody in charge of maintenance might have been directing Internet traffic to a particular group of servers, but selected the wrong group.
But at Amazon? "What I find still so surprising is it happened in the middle of the day. Typically you do that in off-peak hours," White said. "They rank on the top with performance and availability, consistently, time and time again."
Network attack?
Another possible explanation is an attack such as the distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack that struck Amazon and other high-profile sites in 2000. White thinks it unlikely, though, that a crushing load of network traffic brought Amazon down.
"These guys are experts at dealing with flash floods of users," including those that routinely arrive during peak shopping days. "Usually, when you see a site going under because of traffic issues or a denial-of-service attack, you see a gradual slowdown in performance and drop in availability. Here we saw at 10:16 a.m. it completely dropped off 100 percent."
Soups Ranjan, a senior member of the technical staff of network protection and management company Narus, hasn't yet found any attack evidence.
"It doesn't seem to be the result of a network-initiated attack, at least from my preliminary analysis from our probes," Ranjan said.
Human error may not sound as gripping a tale as a network attack, but there's plenty of drama for the people responsible. And it's the career-limiting variety of drama, said Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff, who hazarded a guess that Amazon's problem involved its front-end Web servers.
The security group of WebSense, a Web site and communications protection company, also saw no evidence Amazon's problem was security related.
Related computer blog: http://cpu-hitech.blogspot.com/
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Update News: Verizon Wireless to buy Alltel
Acquisition of wireless provider Alltel is valued at about $28 billion
Verizon Wireless announced Thursday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Alltel for $5.9 billion, plus the assumption of debt, in a deal that will create the biggest mobile phone company in the U.S.
Based on Alltel's projected net debt at closing of $22.2 billion, the aggregate value of the deal is $28.1 billion, Verizon said. The merger should be complete by the end of the year, pending regulatory approvals, Verizon said.
Verizon said the acquisition will give users access to an expanded range of products and services.
Alltel has more than 13 million mobile phone customers in 34 states, including 57 primarily rural markets that Verizon Wireless does not serve. The merger will give Alltel customers access to next-generation wireless services that Verizon is rolling out, the companies said in a news release.
Alltel's customers will also be able to take advantage of Verizon Wireless' Open Development initiative, which will allow customers to bring outside wireless devices and applications onto the Verizon network, Verizon said.
"This move will create an enhanced platform of network coverage, spectrum and customer care to better serve the growing needs of both Alltel and Verizon Wireless customers for reliable basic and advanced broadband wireless services," Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless' president and CEO, said in a statement.
Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon Communication's CEO and chairman, called the merger a "perfect fit."
Verizon Wireless expects to cut costs by more than $9 billion through the merger, the company said in a news release. The cost savings are expected to reach $1 billion in the second year after closing, Verizon said.
Public Knowledge, a consumer rights group that's a frequent critic of large telecom companies, suggested the deal could be bad for consumers.
The merger "raises serious questions for consumer that will have to be addressed through antitrust analysis," Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge's president, said in an e-mail.
If the deal goes through, Verizon and AT&T will have 150 million of the nation's 260 million mobile customers, Sohn said. "With Sprint in a weakened condition, this deal will speed the unfortunate trend of giving consumers fewer, rather than more, choices in telecommunications services, while giving a few companies more control over the lives of consumers," she added.
Sohn called on the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to closely examine the deal.
Jeff Kagan, an independent telecom analyst, said the deal may make sense, especially for Alltel, which has struggled in recent years to attract customers.
"This deal would help Verizon Wireless grow by acquiring a new customer base," Kagan said in an e-mail. "Not that it matters much anymore, because they are all so big, but this deal would give Verizon Wireless the number one spot in the rankings."
Verizon Wireless announced Thursday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Alltel for $5.9 billion, plus the assumption of debt, in a deal that will create the biggest mobile phone company in the U.S.
Based on Alltel's projected net debt at closing of $22.2 billion, the aggregate value of the deal is $28.1 billion, Verizon said. The merger should be complete by the end of the year, pending regulatory approvals, Verizon said.
Verizon said the acquisition will give users access to an expanded range of products and services.
Alltel has more than 13 million mobile phone customers in 34 states, including 57 primarily rural markets that Verizon Wireless does not serve. The merger will give Alltel customers access to next-generation wireless services that Verizon is rolling out, the companies said in a news release.
Alltel's customers will also be able to take advantage of Verizon Wireless' Open Development initiative, which will allow customers to bring outside wireless devices and applications onto the Verizon network, Verizon said.
"This move will create an enhanced platform of network coverage, spectrum and customer care to better serve the growing needs of both Alltel and Verizon Wireless customers for reliable basic and advanced broadband wireless services," Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless' president and CEO, said in a statement.
Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon Communication's CEO and chairman, called the merger a "perfect fit."
Verizon Wireless expects to cut costs by more than $9 billion through the merger, the company said in a news release. The cost savings are expected to reach $1 billion in the second year after closing, Verizon said.
Public Knowledge, a consumer rights group that's a frequent critic of large telecom companies, suggested the deal could be bad for consumers.
The merger "raises serious questions for consumer that will have to be addressed through antitrust analysis," Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge's president, said in an e-mail.
If the deal goes through, Verizon and AT&T will have 150 million of the nation's 260 million mobile customers, Sohn said. "With Sprint in a weakened condition, this deal will speed the unfortunate trend of giving consumers fewer, rather than more, choices in telecommunications services, while giving a few companies more control over the lives of consumers," she added.
Sohn called on the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to closely examine the deal.
Jeff Kagan, an independent telecom analyst, said the deal may make sense, especially for Alltel, which has struggled in recent years to attract customers.
"This deal would help Verizon Wireless grow by acquiring a new customer base," Kagan said in an e-mail. "Not that it matters much anymore, because they are all so big, but this deal would give Verizon Wireless the number one spot in the rankings."
By Grant Gross & Marc Ferranti
IDG News Service
IDG News Service
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Yahoo boasts new ad deals, joins CBS' online video network
Impeccably timed to suit president Sue Decker's keynote at the Advertising 2.0 conference in New York, Yahoo announced Wednesday that it has inked advertising deals with two major clients: discount retail giant Wal-Mart and interactive ad agency Havas Digital. Terms of neither deal were disclosed.
The company has also signed on as a partner in CBS Interactive's CBS Audience Network of online video distribution partners.
For Wal-Mart, Yahoo will handle display and video advertising on the Walmart.com site as part of a multi-year agreement. Walmart.com will also become part of Yahoo's upcoming AMP advertising management platform, which was originally unveiled in April.
Through the agreement, Yahoo will be the exclusive reseller of Walmart.com ad inventory.
Havas Digital will also be a part of the AMP platform, per Wednesday's announcements. The agency has agreed to work with the Right Media ad exchange, which Yahoo acquired last year, to develop its own inventory-trading platform. It's not the first agency partnership for Yahoo in recent weeks; last month, Yahoo signed a Right Media-related deal with several subsidiaries of ad powerhouse WPP Group.
On the content side, Yahoo's membership in the CBS Audience Network will put it alongside the likes of AOL, Microsoft, Comcast's Fancast, and Veoh. CBS' video catalog will be available on Yahoo's Yahoo TV product, which already has content from Fox and NBC as well as about a dozen cable networks.
Yahoo already had deals with CBS to stream content related to its 60 Minutes news program, as well as local news and sports videos from 16 metro regions.
Decker also announced in her keynote at Advertising 2.0 that the company has launched a newspaper marketing program called Yahoo Circular, in which retailers can take advantage of user interest to target them with personalized newspaper circulars. And the participant count for Yahoo's local Newspaper Consortium advertising project is now up to 779 publications; members of the consortium will be the first to use Yahoo's AMP technology when it debuts later this summer.
Disclaimer: CNET News.com parent company CNET Networks has a content-sharing deal with Yahoo. CNET Networks is also expected to become a CBS property as part of an acquisition offer set to close in the third quarter of 2008.
The company has also signed on as a partner in CBS Interactive's CBS Audience Network of online video distribution partners.
For Wal-Mart, Yahoo will handle display and video advertising on the Walmart.com site as part of a multi-year agreement. Walmart.com will also become part of Yahoo's upcoming AMP advertising management platform, which was originally unveiled in April.
Through the agreement, Yahoo will be the exclusive reseller of Walmart.com ad inventory.
Havas Digital will also be a part of the AMP platform, per Wednesday's announcements. The agency has agreed to work with the Right Media ad exchange, which Yahoo acquired last year, to develop its own inventory-trading platform. It's not the first agency partnership for Yahoo in recent weeks; last month, Yahoo signed a Right Media-related deal with several subsidiaries of ad powerhouse WPP Group.
On the content side, Yahoo's membership in the CBS Audience Network will put it alongside the likes of AOL, Microsoft, Comcast's Fancast, and Veoh. CBS' video catalog will be available on Yahoo's Yahoo TV product, which already has content from Fox and NBC as well as about a dozen cable networks.
Yahoo already had deals with CBS to stream content related to its 60 Minutes news program, as well as local news and sports videos from 16 metro regions.
Decker also announced in her keynote at Advertising 2.0 that the company has launched a newspaper marketing program called Yahoo Circular, in which retailers can take advantage of user interest to target them with personalized newspaper circulars. And the participant count for Yahoo's local Newspaper Consortium advertising project is now up to 779 publications; members of the consortium will be the first to use Yahoo's AMP technology when it debuts later this summer.
Disclaimer: CNET News.com parent company CNET Networks has a content-sharing deal with Yahoo. CNET Networks is also expected to become a CBS property as part of an acquisition offer set to close in the third quarter of 2008.
By Caroline McCarthy
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Hide your identity while posting on forums !!!
The Internet is made up of a collection of billions of different website types and genres. One such popular gathering spot for the Internet masses are community forums. They are just like the word forum is described on the internet, except done all online. On a forum, you can raise new topics and reply to ones posted by other members. On an internet forum, you can stay completely anonymous behind your keyboard while you chat up a storm on a number of topics and interests. Well, you can stay almost anonymous
An IP address is something that comes attached to your computer. Basically, as long as your computer is stuck in one spot, this IP address will stay the same, always. What is so interesting about this IP address? It can basically identify who you are and what you do on the internet. It is like the digital address to your computer, much like the address and numbers posted on your mail box. It is really scary though, as this IP address can be used to target you in a myriad of different ways and not all of them being good.
This is why you should always be using software that will hide your IP address, especially on forums. A hacker is someone that can use your IP address for evil. The hackers that know your IP address can track your internet and forum movements. However, if you use an IP hider to hide your IP on forums these hackers will be unable to target you and your computer. Using a program to hide IP addresses on forums, people trying to hack into your computer will be sent a fake IP, displaying a random IP and location to where you are.
Using an IP hider also disables the chance that marketers and scammers will be able to track you down to your internet and send those annoying junk emails you get every day. The benefits of software to hide your IP are growing every day, and using it will absolutely not affect the way you can surf online and what forums you can visit. It will simply hide your IP address to the bad people that want it to do nasty things.
Related Computer Blog: http://cpu-hitech.blogspot.com/By Anelly
Monday, June 2, 2008
Acer aspires to lead low-cost laptop race
After months as the subject of speculation in the media, Acer will introduce its own low-cost mini-notebook PC at the Computex trade show in Taipei on Tuesday.
The device will be called the Acer Aspire One, as expected. It will come with an Intel Atom processor, and run Linpus Linux Lite, with Acer's own user interface. Other specs include: an 8GB solid-state drive, 512MB of RAM, 802.11 b/g WiFi, an 8.9-inch screen, and a standard 3-hour battery.
Acer Aspire One
Acer Aspire One will begin at $379.
(Credit: Acer)
The Aspire One will be available beginning July 2 for $379. Later that month, a version running Windows XP Home Edition with an 80GB hard drive, and 1GB of RAM will be available, though the pricing details on that have yet to be ironed out.
As this niche of computing begins to become more crowded, the specs are beginning to look more or less the same. Price and little details like keyboard and exterior design are going to be the most distinguishing factors.
At $379, the Aspire One is cheaper than the runaway hit Eee PC from Asus, whose 9-inch version begins at $549 for the Linux version, and the $499 Linux-based Hewlett-Packard Mini-Note. (CNET has not yet reviewed the Aspire One, but stay tuned.)
Besides pearl white, Acer also plans to offer a bright blue version, and eventually pink and brown. The keyboard isn't quite as large as the Mini-Note's 92 percent keyboard, coming in at 89 percent of the standard size keyboard for a 14-inch notebook.
But just like its direct competitors, Acer sees two distinct customers for the Aspire One: school kids and the highly mobile tech-savvy set.
Acer's plan it seems is to use its Aspire One as sort of a gateway-PC (No pun intended.) for the uninitiated PC user.
"It's a great device that is a stepping stool to a first-time notebook user," said Sumit Agnihotry, director of notebook product management for Acer America. That way kids can "bypass the desktop completely (and move) to a notebook in less than 18 months."
And if there's something Acer's gotten good at lately, it's moving notebooks. It sells more notebooks than every other computer maker except for HP.
Acer says it sees the mini-notebook as a third device for geeked-out consumers after a smartphone and a standard notebook PC, claiming that "it's much more a single application with an Internet-centric focus," Agnihotry said.
But is it more devices we're after? Or fewer? The genius of the smartphone is how much it can do. With the $379 price point not all that far removed from some of Acer's more inexpensive full-size notebooks, is selling someone on the lack of features of the Aspire One really the way to win customers?
It's clearly not for the mainstream PC users, who generally expect the best features and latest-generation processors when purchasing a new PC. But the company doesn't seem to see any overlap between those customers, saying it doesn't expect this will "cannibalize" its current notebook business at all.
Related Computer & Techonology Blog: http://cpu-hitech.blogspot.com/
The device will be called the Acer Aspire One, as expected. It will come with an Intel Atom processor, and run Linpus Linux Lite, with Acer's own user interface. Other specs include: an 8GB solid-state drive, 512MB of RAM, 802.11 b/g WiFi, an 8.9-inch screen, and a standard 3-hour battery.
Acer Aspire One
Acer Aspire One will begin at $379.
(Credit: Acer)
The Aspire One will be available beginning July 2 for $379. Later that month, a version running Windows XP Home Edition with an 80GB hard drive, and 1GB of RAM will be available, though the pricing details on that have yet to be ironed out.
As this niche of computing begins to become more crowded, the specs are beginning to look more or less the same. Price and little details like keyboard and exterior design are going to be the most distinguishing factors.
At $379, the Aspire One is cheaper than the runaway hit Eee PC from Asus, whose 9-inch version begins at $549 for the Linux version, and the $499 Linux-based Hewlett-Packard Mini-Note. (CNET has not yet reviewed the Aspire One, but stay tuned.)
Besides pearl white, Acer also plans to offer a bright blue version, and eventually pink and brown. The keyboard isn't quite as large as the Mini-Note's 92 percent keyboard, coming in at 89 percent of the standard size keyboard for a 14-inch notebook.
But just like its direct competitors, Acer sees two distinct customers for the Aspire One: school kids and the highly mobile tech-savvy set.
Acer's plan it seems is to use its Aspire One as sort of a gateway-PC (No pun intended.) for the uninitiated PC user.
"It's a great device that is a stepping stool to a first-time notebook user," said Sumit Agnihotry, director of notebook product management for Acer America. That way kids can "bypass the desktop completely (and move) to a notebook in less than 18 months."
And if there's something Acer's gotten good at lately, it's moving notebooks. It sells more notebooks than every other computer maker except for HP.
Acer says it sees the mini-notebook as a third device for geeked-out consumers after a smartphone and a standard notebook PC, claiming that "it's much more a single application with an Internet-centric focus," Agnihotry said.
But is it more devices we're after? Or fewer? The genius of the smartphone is how much it can do. With the $379 price point not all that far removed from some of Acer's more inexpensive full-size notebooks, is selling someone on the lack of features of the Aspire One really the way to win customers?
It's clearly not for the mainstream PC users, who generally expect the best features and latest-generation processors when purchasing a new PC. But the company doesn't seem to see any overlap between those customers, saying it doesn't expect this will "cannibalize" its current notebook business at all.
Related Computer & Techonology Blog: http://cpu-hitech.blogspot.com/
By Erica Ogg
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Short-timer: Gates down to his last month at Microsoft
Legacy assessment season opens as end of two-year retirement process looms
The only certainties in life, the saying goes, are death and taxes. But for IT pros and home users alike, there has been a third one for the past three decades: Bill Gates as the leader and public face of Microsoft Corp., the software vendor he co-founded 33 years ago.
Along with Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, Gates is one of the two most seminal figures — or at least widely recognized personalities — from the PC revolution that eventually begat both the dot-com era and today's Web 2.0 movement. And because of his fabulous wealth, and all of the controversy that Microsoft has generated because of its market dominance, Gates may be the only IT industry executive familiar even to members of the general public who aren't at all tech-savvy.
But the certainty of Gates being at Microsoft is about to come to an end. The 52-year-old will officially step away from his day-to-day role at Microsoft at the end of this month in order to devote more time — along with his wife, Melinda — to the charitable foundation that bears their names.
William H. Gates III's legacy within the IT industry no doubt will be colored by people's views of the company he has built. Obviously, there have been a lot of pluses: directly or indirectly, Gates has helped to bring computing to the masses and to enrich hundreds of thousands of Microsoft employees and business partners, plus many more shareholders. In addition, he has played a large role in helping the U.S. maintain its position as the global leader in technology.
But his detractors — and there are many — say that under Gates, Microsoft has overcharged tens if not hundreds of millions of customers while afflicting them with, umm, less-than-stellar software (see David Letterman's backhanded tribute video here). Critics also contend that Gates engaged in monopolistic business tactics both in the U.S. and overseas in order to crush challengers and amass one of the largest fortunes in the world, worth an estimated $58 billion.
It also seems like Gates has been retiring for a long time now. Microsoft announced on June 15, 2006, that he would immediately give up his chief software architect role and then stop working full-time at the company following a two-year transition period. Since then, Gates, intentionally or not, has taken more victory laps than Formula One driver Michael Schumacher did in his racing days.
In particular, every public appearance by Gates over the past 12 months has been touted as his "final (fill in the blank) ever" — until, inevitably, he shows up again somewhere else.
What has helped make it tolerable is Gates' willingness to poke fun at himself. For example, he was self-deprecating enough to star in a celebrity-filled video spoofing his retirement plans — and as corporate videos go, it actually was funny.
Despite all the talk of retirement, Gates won't truly be gone from Redmond. He plans to continue as Microsoft's chairman, and he said last week that he still plans to spend 20% of his time working at the company on projects involving technologies such as Office and search tools.
So he won't be history, really. But it is a good time to start thinking about how to judge Gates and his impact on the IT industry from a historical perspective. During the course of this month, Computerworld will publish more stories examining his legacy and analyzing Microsoft's prospects in the post-Gates era. You also have the opportunity to weigh in with your thoughts and opinions on those topics, via the reader comments section lower down on this page. We'll call attention to some of the best comments in a later story.
The only certainties in life, the saying goes, are death and taxes. But for IT pros and home users alike, there has been a third one for the past three decades: Bill Gates as the leader and public face of Microsoft Corp., the software vendor he co-founded 33 years ago.
Along with Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, Gates is one of the two most seminal figures — or at least widely recognized personalities — from the PC revolution that eventually begat both the dot-com era and today's Web 2.0 movement. And because of his fabulous wealth, and all of the controversy that Microsoft has generated because of its market dominance, Gates may be the only IT industry executive familiar even to members of the general public who aren't at all tech-savvy.
But the certainty of Gates being at Microsoft is about to come to an end. The 52-year-old will officially step away from his day-to-day role at Microsoft at the end of this month in order to devote more time — along with his wife, Melinda — to the charitable foundation that bears their names.
William H. Gates III's legacy within the IT industry no doubt will be colored by people's views of the company he has built. Obviously, there have been a lot of pluses: directly or indirectly, Gates has helped to bring computing to the masses and to enrich hundreds of thousands of Microsoft employees and business partners, plus many more shareholders. In addition, he has played a large role in helping the U.S. maintain its position as the global leader in technology.
But his detractors — and there are many — say that under Gates, Microsoft has overcharged tens if not hundreds of millions of customers while afflicting them with, umm, less-than-stellar software (see David Letterman's backhanded tribute video here). Critics also contend that Gates engaged in monopolistic business tactics both in the U.S. and overseas in order to crush challengers and amass one of the largest fortunes in the world, worth an estimated $58 billion.
It also seems like Gates has been retiring for a long time now. Microsoft announced on June 15, 2006, that he would immediately give up his chief software architect role and then stop working full-time at the company following a two-year transition period. Since then, Gates, intentionally or not, has taken more victory laps than Formula One driver Michael Schumacher did in his racing days.
In particular, every public appearance by Gates over the past 12 months has been touted as his "final (fill in the blank) ever" — until, inevitably, he shows up again somewhere else.
What has helped make it tolerable is Gates' willingness to poke fun at himself. For example, he was self-deprecating enough to star in a celebrity-filled video spoofing his retirement plans — and as corporate videos go, it actually was funny.
Despite all the talk of retirement, Gates won't truly be gone from Redmond. He plans to continue as Microsoft's chairman, and he said last week that he still plans to spend 20% of his time working at the company on projects involving technologies such as Office and search tools.
So he won't be history, really. But it is a good time to start thinking about how to judge Gates and his impact on the IT industry from a historical perspective. During the course of this month, Computerworld will publish more stories examining his legacy and analyzing Microsoft's prospects in the post-Gates era. You also have the opportunity to weigh in with your thoughts and opinions on those topics, via the reader comments section lower down on this page. We'll call attention to some of the best comments in a later story.
By Eric Lai
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