not such a good guy after all

Story: $100 PC project will "invigorate Linux desktop push"Total Replies: 11
Author Content
henke54

Jan 31, 2006
10:57 AM EDT
quote : "According to the Times, Microsoft Chairman and cofounder Bill Gates is "privately bitter" about Negroponte's decision to use Red Hat for the laptop. (Maybe he's not such a good guy after all.)" http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060130-6078.html
tadelste

Jan 31, 2006
1:17 PM EDT
I wonder sometimes about Gates. Is he just a little kid who throws a fit when he doesn't get his way? Microsoft is supposed to be a business with executives who behave like professionals. He doesn't give the impression of being an adult or a professional. The impression seems to be of a spoiled little rich kid.

alc

Jan 31, 2006
1:38 PM EDT
[The impression seems to be of a spoiled little rich kid.]

You might add cunning to that.
tadelste

Jan 31, 2006
1:48 PM EDT
Cunning? Ballmer is cunning. Gates is a buffoon.
bdumm

Jan 31, 2006
4:25 PM EDT
bwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

tadelste you are such a comedian......

lol
SFN

Feb 01, 2006
6:01 AM EDT
"Is he just a little kid who throws a fit when he doesn't get his way?"

He's an extremely successful and throughly unscrupulous businessman who throws a fit when he doesn't get his way.

Although that's not an unusual trait in extremely successful, unscrupulous businessmen, it's magnified in this case because Gates has more fit-throwing resources available to him.
tadelste

Feb 01, 2006
6:25 AM EDT
Quoting:He's an extremely successful and thoroughly unscrupulous businessman who throws a fit when he doesn't get his way.


Somewhere I got a little different impression. I thought that his mother was overbearing and domineering and really ran the show from the background. She was on the Board of IBM and got him his appointment with the IBM PC Company, Inc. where IBM was desperate for an operating system for their new entry into the PC market.

Then, when she died I understood he turned to Steve Ballmer for leadership.

Oh, well, the things one picks up when they investigate.



alc

Feb 01, 2006
1:56 PM EDT
{ Somewhere I got a little different impression. I thought that his mother was overbearing and domineering and really ran the show from the background. She was on the Board of IBM and got him his appointment with the IBM PC Company, Inc. where IBM was desperate for an operating system for their new entry into the PC market.

Then, when she died I understood he turned to Steve Ballmer for leadership.

Oh, well, the things one picks up when they investigate. }

Interesting.I never heard that before.I guess a little more investigating is in order.Thanks for the insight.
number6x

Feb 01, 2006
4:54 PM EDT
"Ballmer is cunning."

Cunning like a box.
tadelste

Feb 01, 2006
8:28 PM EDT
From: Robert X. Cringely http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20001123.html

In his own right, Ballmer once took an individual business risk that pales anything ever accomplished by Gates. In the late 1980s, when Microsoft was approaching the release of Windows 3.0 — the first version of the software to do more or less what it claimed — Ballmer borrowed almost $50 million against his Microsoft stock and anything else he owned, and used the money to buy more Microsoft shares. Software tycoons don't do things like this. They sell shares, not buy them. Gates has never bought a single share of Microsoft, but Ballmer did, and the $50 million grew over the following decade to more than $12 billion, earning him the CEO job he has today. That Gates allowed Ballmer to not only succeed him, but to remake Microsoft in Ballmer's image, indicated that Gates was ready to move on to a new level of competition.

Some Box. And insider trading at that!
number6x

Feb 02, 2006
4:14 AM EDT
t,

I know he's a smart business guy. I truly believe he is probably one of Microsoft's best assets on the business side. Tech companies have all the best tech people, but rarely have any competent business people (cough, Sun, cough).

However, I've just been dying to use that pun for years, and it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. People just don't use the word "cunning" in regular conversation that often.

That opportunity may not make be a billionaire, but it gave me a good laugh!

You gotta admit, as puns go, its a good one.

;-)
tadelste

Feb 02, 2006
6:11 AM EDT
number6x, indeed! It was a good one ;)

Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]

Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!