Features

It's been the longset of goodbyes, but two years after announcing he was hanging up his keyboard, Bill Gates will finally bow out of his full-time role at Microsoft this summer. How will the IT industry cope without the man who has the ability to have people queuing round the block to hear him speak one minute, and queuing up to throw verbal bricks through his Windows the next?

We chart Bill's rise from a schoolboy programmer to one of the world's richest men. We discover how much influence Bill has wielded over Microsoft's key

ADVERTISEMENT

decisions in the past 30 years, and speak to industry experts and even those who've been on the receiving end of an infamous "BillG Review" to find out exactly how much Mr Microsoft will be missed.

Gates has attracted his fair share of enemies over the years, too.

You don't become the man who, according to Jeremy Paxman, can drop a $100 bill but earn more money in the time it takes to pick it up without doing something right. On p128 the PC Pro team picks Bill's ten biggest hits during his time at Microsoft, while on p129 we rank the ten things he won't recall so fondly.

Tell us whether you're going to miss Bill Gates or if you can't wait to see the back of him at letters@pcpro.co.uk.

Farewell Bill Gates
Bill's 10 biggest hits
Bill's 10 biggest blunders