A brief history of Microsoft, sans most of the dirty stuff.

[GreyGeek]

http://www.voteview.com/gates.htm

His parent were rich:

In 1968 at age 13 as an 8th grader while at Lakeside School (a private exclusive school for boys) he got access to a Teletype connected by a 110 baud modem to a GE MARK II time-sharing system that only had BASIC (Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). The teletype combined a keyboard, a printer, and a paper tape punch and reader. It cost $89 per month to rent the teletype and $8 an hour for on-line fees (about $450 and $40 in 1998 dollars, respectively). Gates quickly became an avid programmer and one of the main users of the system.

How many of you, as an 8th grader, could have afforded to pay a monthly access fee of $450? Or even $40?

He was a hacker who stole services:

While Gates became a wizard at BASIC, Allen borrows the DEC manuals and learns the instruction set, the macro assembler, and the Monitor (program that controls the hardware and the input/output) of the PDP-10! When the free time ran out Gates and Allen figure how to get free time on the PDP-10 by logging in as the system operator.
...
Allen went over to the University of Washington and began using a Xerox computer by pretending he was a graduate student. Gates soon followed and they used the UofW computer until an intolerant professor caught them at it and they were barred.
...
Gates & Allen then went to another room in the building and began using a CDC Cyber 6400 designed by Seymour Cray.

So, if ANYONE should know what theft is, it is Bill Gates:

Gates became increasingly upset with the widespread piracy of Microsoft's during the early 1975-76 period. His response was his famous "An Open Letter to Hobbyists" that was sent out to every major computer publication in February 1976. In it he decried the practice which he regarded as simple theft and his statement caused a huge uproar.

Pot, meet kettle.

Gates develops his "vapor ware model":

Gates begins the development of WINDOWS (called Interface Manager) to head off VisiOn. Interface Manager was classic Gates: Vaporware - do a demo, sign the contracts, get the code done later. In April 1983 a phony "smoke-and-mirrors" demo was done. Microsoft promoted Interface Manage throughout 1983 with great zeal (allegedly tying its purchase to the purchase of DOS in clear violation of antitrust law).

He later used a similar "smoke-and-mirros" technique in court with a piece of video, to "demonstrate" that Internet Explorer could be easily removed from Windows. DOJ prosecutors caught the deception, but Gates wasn't prosecuted for perjury ... strangely.

The sanitized list:

Is Gates guilty of unfair business practices? Yes. Microsoft clearly:
1) Looked at rival developers' projects and then started its own;
2) Used its control over operating systems to enhance its efforts in applications;
3) Used tie-ins;
4) Vaporware - it used pre-announcements of non-existing products to freeze or cripple potential competition.

Tie-ins:

By 1984 about 10,000,000 personal computers where shipping a year and most of them had DOS on them. By this time Microsoft had switched to per-machine deals with vendors. .... Per-machine deals made it virtually impossible for competitors to crack the DOS monopoly. Vendors that were already paying a royalty for DOS on every machine were not going to offer a different operating system except as a high-priced option!

Microsoft in effect collected a bounty, a tax virtually every time anybody bought a DOS machine from someone other than IBM!

And you thought that the Microsoft Tax started with Windows? This is the first example of Microsoft's use of monopolistic practices to keep superior products (DRDOS) off of OEM PCs. And Gates was only 29 in 1984, when all of this took place.

Gates, however, was never affected by Steven Jobs "Reality Distortion Field".