Comparing Bill Gates And Steve Jobs

William (Bill) H. Gates: The chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation, the world’s leading software firm. Born on Oct. 28, 1955, he grew up in Seattle with his two sisters, his father, William H, Gates II, is a Seattle lawyer and his mother, Mary Gates was a school teacher in University of Washington regent and she was also the Chair women of United Way International. At the age of 13, Bill Gates wrote his first program to play farmer-chess. The computer he used was big, heavy and very slow, he was very obsessed with this computer as it did not have a screen, so to view who had won they had to run over to the big printer and they used to look at the score. It would have taken only 30secs if they have done it on paper, where as it would take almost the whole lunch time if they had done it on computer.

Bill handled to set up an arrangement with the computer owners, that he would get free computer-time which has been designed for parents. Using this is simple, with few steps of instructions you can set up limits for children. At this time Bill met Paul Allen, who became his business partner for rest of his life.

They both started a small company called Traf-o-Data, they sold small computer equipment with their program which can count traffic for the city. Even though this company wasn’t a big success but they earned some money and good business skills.

In 1973, Bill entered Harvard university as a freshman, where now he became the Microsoft’s chief executive officer, he developed a vision of the programming language BASIC for the first computer.

In his junior he left Harvard and in 1975, he started his new company along with his childhood friend Paul Allen, his main belief was that the computer would be the valuable tool on every desktop and in every home, they started to began new software and he started to improve those software technology by making it easier, cheaper and more fun for the people to use computers. Gates foresight and his vision for personal computing have been the success in Microsoft and the software industry.

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Later Bill started to search for business opportunities in programming, so he left Harvard which turned him into a multibillionaire. Even becoming very rich, he drives himself in a normal family car to work and he also flies a coach.

Figure 2: Microsoft Windows roadmap

Bill Gates made an operative system called MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operative System), which he sold to IBM.

Gates then convinced IBM to give up the specifications of the secret design in an open system for its personal computer, so that the other software makers can easily build this software, to understand how actually this operating system functions. More than 100 companies where eagerly to be IBM-compatible, which obtained licenses for MS-DOS quickly making operating system a major tool for personal computers.

Conclusion:

One of the reason why Bill Gates is so successful is that he did not underestimate himself, he always believed on himself. It’s very interesting to know that even with all that money, he drives himself in a normal family car to work and he also flies a coach. Bill Gates said to his teacher that before he reach thirty he would become a millionaire which he made it. His family when he was born, his family found a million-dollar trust fund for him. Without his fund i guess he would not have gone to Harvard.

Steve Jobs: Technology Entrepreneur, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Apple Inc.

Born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California. As an infant, Steven was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs and named Steven Paul Jobs. Paul was a Coast Guard veteran and machinist and Clara worked as an accountant. Steven and his father used to work in their garage on electronics.

In 1972 Jobs was graduated from high school and registered in Reed college in Portland, Oregon. After six months Jobs was dropped out from the Reed and he spent one year roaming around the campus attending the classes in Philosophy and engaged himself with values and lifestyles in opposition to those of the established culture.

In 1974, Jobs worked as a video game designer in Atari, Inc., a pioneer in electronic arcade recreation. He was not interested in creating electronics, he was interested in marketing electronic products. So he started to plan and he convinced Wozniak to work along with him to build a personal computer. So firstly they planned to get money to start their own company. So Jobs sold his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak sold his scientific calculator, overall they got £1300 and also got some credit from the local suppliers, with this bit they started their fist production line. Steven convinced Wozniak to quit his job in Hewlett-Packard and made him to join him as a vice president in charge of research and development of his new company. He named his new company as Apple in memory of happy summer in Oregon jobs, where he spent his time as a worker.

Jobs and Wozniak have earned a lot with their revolutionized technology, by making the machines to cheaper, intuitive, smaller and accessible to everyday consumers.

Figure 3: Steve Jobs and Wozniak

They have conceived a series of personal computers which are user -friendly, which they marketed each for $666.66. Apple I was there first model, which earned them $774,000. After three years, Apple II was their second model, which increased their sales to 700 percent to $139 million. Apple Computer became a publically traded company with $1.2 billion of market value that too on the first day of trading. John Scully of Pepsi-Cola who is marketing expert, helped to fill the job role for Apple’s.

However, there were significant design defects in several next launched Apple products, which made the consumers disappointment and resulting in recalls. John Scully thought that this might be Jobs was hurting Apple and also the executives started to phase him out.

Jobs resigned as Apple’s CEO in 1985 and he started a new software and hardware company called NeXT, Inc. In the same year Jobs purchased an animation company from George Lucas, which was later named as Pixar Animation Studios. Jobs invested $50 million from his own money by believing in Pixar’s future. Pixar Studios started producing wildli popular animation films such as Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Toy Story. Pixar’s films have netted $4 billion. In 2006, the studio merged with Walt Disney, making Steve Jobs Disney’s largest shareholder.

Despite the success of Pixar’s, NeXT, Inc. struggled to sell their specialized operating system to the mainstream America.

In 1997, Apple brought the company for $429 millions. Jobs returned in the same year as Apple CEO after several years outside the company. Jobs understood that Apple needed to focus on its core competency, like designing easy-to-use and engaging hardware and software products. He immediately revamped the product line by modernizing the Mac operating system and providing Apple computers with new internet capabilities.

In addition he started to outsource manufacturing operations to specialized high tech manufacturing companies, primarily located in Asia. In order to get close to the customers Jobs next initiative was to launch the Apple Online store to sell products directly to customers over the Internet.

Jobs revolutionary products such as iMac, stylish designs and effective branding campaigns again caught the thoughts of consumers and which attracted the people to go for it. Recently Apple has launched some of the ingenious products such as iPhone, Macbook Air and iPod, which have charged the evolution of modern technology. All the competitors were scramble to produce comparable technologies, when every time Apple releases a new one. Apple’s quarterly report in 2007, were the most impressive statistics to date. A record breaking stocks worth £199.99 a share, and the company profit of $1.58 billion surplus in the bank with zero debt.

Figure 4: Apple Roadmap

iTunes has become the 2nd biggest retailer in America. With six billion songs downloaded and 200 million iPods sold, Apple’s half of the revenue comes from iTunes and iPods sales. America’s most admired companies has been given No. 1 to Apple and also No. 1 amongst Fortune 500 companies for returns to shareholders.

Conclusion:

The PC industry has evolved in the past decades. They are proprietary, open structure and internet PC. The interaction of Politic, Economic, Social and Technology forces create a turbulent and complex environment. In addition, the interaction between 5 competitive forces, create environment for Apple very competitive and hard to survive. Apple past ignorance of environmental change made Apple losing market share. Now, as environmental change dynamically, Apple responded by adapting its business model and strategy in order to struggle for survive.

Comparison between Steve Jobs of Apple and Bill Gates of Microsoft:

On 24th of February 1955, Steve Jobs born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, he is best know as the co-founder & CEO of Apple Computer and somewhat less so for his leadership of Pixar which is a computer animation studio. On the other hand, on the 28th of October 1955, Bill Gates born in Seattle, Washington, he is married to Melinda French Gates and has three children. Bill Gates is the co-founder and current Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft. Both started their careers almost at the same time and within the same industry. They are no doubt two of the most wealthy and successful men in the PC industry. Steve Jobs is a technological leader and true creative thinker while Bill Gates is the opportunity seeker. The rivalry and competition between Gates and Jobs has become one of the most fascinating and brave in the American business industry. In the end both men are well-known and admire by many.

Although each company has its own philosophy, there is a slight difference between Apple’s and Microsoft’s philosophies because each philosophy has a different aim. Microsoft’s philosophy is “A computer on every disk in every house, running Microsoft software” which is more focused and concerned about running their own software in every computer. As for Apple’s philosophy, it is “Make computers accessible to everyone and make it very easy to use” and that is more concerned about making their computers being easy to access and making it as easy as they can for everyone else to use.

Figure 5: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at the fifth D: All Things Digital conference (D5) in 2007

They both co-founded and their established companies along with another person. Apple, it was co-founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak who is credited with begin the entry of computers into private homes and he also wrote most of the software that Apple ran. As for Microsoft it was co-founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen who dropped out of Washington State University to pursue his and Bill Gates dream of writing software commercially for the new personal computers. However, In November 2000 Paul Allen resigned from his position on the Microsoft board.

Bill Gates first achievement was the development of a programming language called BASIC for the Altair computer which is the first commercially successful personal computer. As for Steve Jobs, his first big achievement was Apple II which was the most popular and best selling personal computer of its time. There is a difference between their first achievements because Microsoft first development was software whereas Apple’s first product was hardware.

Both Bill Gates and Steve jobs are extremely good at taking in good ideas, and developing them and making them into a successful product. This mostly because they are not at all afraid of taking any risks and try very hard even if they do not always get it right the first time. An example for this would be MS-DOS for Microsoft and an example for apple would be The Lisa and the Page Maker.

Bill Gates has two books written by him, these books called ‘Business At The Speed of Thought’ and ‘The Road Ahead’. In addition to that, he also has books written about him like ‘Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire’. On the other hand, Steve Jobs does not have any books written by him but there were books written about him like ‘The Second Coming of Steve Jobs’ and ‘Steve Jobs and The NeXT Big Thing’.

No matter how much conflict or competition, both Bill Gates and Steve jobs achieved a huge amount of success in their own way. They had similarities between them such as co-founding their companies along with another person, Steve Jobs co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak and Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. They were also similar at taking in idea and developing them without being afraid of facing any risks. Aside from these similarities, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs also had some differences between them, these differences include the fact that both of their companies Microsoft and Apple have their own different and unique philosophy with different aim. Also their first achievements differ because Microsoft’s first achievement BASIC was software whereas Apple’s first achievement Apple II was hardware. Bill Gate also had 2 books written by him in addition to books written about him but Steve Jobs didn’t have the skills to write any books, there were only books written about him by other people.