On April 4th, 1975, two young programmers named Bill Gates and Paul Allen formed a partnership called “Micro-soft.” Gates was 22 years old at the time and Allen was just 19. The two young men had been friends since attending high school together in Seattle and after Allen took a job with MITS in Albuquerque, New Mexico in January 1975, Gates dropped out of his sophomore year at Harvard and moved to Albuquerque to form what would later become Microsoft. The pair moved from New Mexico to Bellevue...

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was no stranger to legal battles involving the patent system. Apple is currently waging war on a number of Android vendors and the company’s former CEO vowed to crush Google’s mobile platform before his untimely passing last year. ”I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Apple boss. “I’m going to d...

Owners of Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch can now enjoy a remake of the first-ever PC game, co-written by Bill Gates himself, which came pre-installed on several IBM computers in 1981. First released late last month, XVision’s DONKEY.BAS is a terrific recreation of the PC game by the same name. Players control a race car as it advances up the screen. Donkeys repeatedly come into view, and the simple goal is to switch lanes before colliding with any curious creatures. “We did this game as a ...

Former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates, recently testified in an antitrust suit brought against the company by Novell in 2004. According to the Associated Press, Novell is arguing that Microsoft originally said it would sell Novell’s WordPerfect software as a feature of Windows 95, but then turned around and launched the operating system without WordPerfect built-in. As a result, Novell had to sell the word processor alone, taking a $1.2 billion loss on the deal. Reportedly, Microsoft&...

When Forbes publishes its 2011 list of billionaires on Wednesday, William Henry Gates III will not be at the top. This is by design, however — the world’s richest man title may have been lost after, but a far more important title remains: the world’s top philanthropist. Gates is not new to this title according to the Global Philanthropy Group, and it finally cost him his spot as the world’s wealthiest man last year. Gates has reportedly given away a third of his wealth at this point, and t...

It’s hard to fault a man who dedicates so much time and money to charity work, but it would also be hard to say Bill’s bgC3 digs aren’t a bit overboard. According to rumors from earlier today, Gates is spending some serious dough to ensure whatever it is he’ll be doing behind closed doors at bgC3 is done in style. Sir William has reportedly spent $2.5 million on office furniture from high-end furniture designer B&B Italia alone. Damn! Add to that another $75,000 just for a coffee b...

You didn’t think Willy G would be content fading away into the background after stepping down as the head of Microsoft, did you? Not a chance. Of course the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a place where Bill can still play boss but Gates never was a one-horse town kind of guy. Enter “bgC3 LLC”. Details regarding Gates’ latest venture are still scarce and much of the detail we have is unconfirmed but rest assured, bgC3 is likely a name we’ll be seeing plenty of in the comin...

In continuing with its new and “clever” line of advertising, Microsoft has temporarily ditched the Gates/Seinfeld ads in favor of reclaiming their image from Apple. As you can see in the image above, it doesn’t seem like they’re really doing themselves a huge favor by taking one of their very own employees and dressing him to resemble John Hodgman, who plays the PC character in Apple’s Mac vs. PC ads. We say all they’re doing is reinforcing or reminding us of that persona: ...

As expected, the new Windows Vista commercial with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates debuted on Sept 4th as part of Microsoft’s $300 million advertising campaign to restore Vista’s public perception problem. A perception problem that has mushroomed into everybody and their brother pouring hate upon Vista without ever having used it and one that persists despite Vista users relatively positive experience with the OS. Will this new commercial do what “The Mojave Experiment” advertisements fa...