(New York)(June 16, 2006) Bill Gates is "retiring?" Thank God. The Robber Baron of Cyberspace is finally stepping down. Having lined his pockets by emptying ours, and forcing us to buy bad code to build his empire, Gates apparently feels he has "enough" of our money to devote himself to "charity." A word of warning to "charity:" Be careful. Beware of Bill Gates.
Mr. Gates and I are not friends. Way back in prehistoric time, 1995, I founded the Committee to Fight Microsoft (full disclosure: I am not retiring; I have to keep paying tribute to the landman, Mr. Gates. The CTFM will continue to operate.). Gates responded to my challenge by seeking to destroy me. He posted attacks on the Microsoft web site linking me to drug smugglers. When smears didn't work, he sent goons onto the streets of New York to manhandle me after I trashed Windows 98 as more junk software.
Gates has been selling defective products for decades, and he has made a fortune insulting the intelligence of the American people and the competence of the Department of Justice. I criticized Microsoft's original 1994 settlement with DOJ and predicted another crime wave: I was right. Billy Boy was a habitual offender when it came to damaging other companies' software and impeding the improvement of technology.
Another reason Gates doesn't like me is that I created the wave of opposition to his predatory marketing tactics by energizing state attorneys general. Before me, state AG's were asleep. After I sounded the alarm many of them realized the threat and became opponents of Microsoft's larceny. And so, while I could not prevent Mr. Gates from becoming "the richest man in the world," I helped put a noticeable dent in his fortune.
I was also a pretty good stock market prognosticator. I predicted Microsoft's stock would stop rising, and it did. It declined.
Why else don't I like Billy Boy? Microsoft has abused its software monopoly to delay improvements and enhancements in technology. Microsoft is a richer company because cyber space is a more dangerous place. "New products" in Gatesland have always been about protecting and protracting Microsoft's operating system monopoly and injuring competitors in the process.
So Gates retired yesterday, June 15th. What a coincidence. Two days earlier the reality of Gates' endlessly endangered kingdom was revealed when the Microsoft web site published a "Security Updates Summary for June 2006." This was for Gates' flagship product: Windows XP.
Windows XP has been around for five (5!) years; but it still has defects that require "critical" updates. And so do his other products. Yup, "critical" updates. And as one writer recently reported, every now and then Gates uses his claim of "criticality" to surreptitiously slip in another one of his money-grubbing zingers, most recently trying to verify your product code after he innocently asks you to agree to "update" your operating system.
Gates has always been more interested in updating his wallet and emptying yours that he has been in good code and honest business practices. Truly, he is our first Robber Baron of Cyberspace.
How can someone who shamelessly calls himself the "chief technology architect" of this electronic garbage admit that five years after he sold his code to the public his product has an endless number of "critical" defects? An architect who designed buildings that kept crashing five years after people moved in would be sued by prosecutors, the FTC, and everybody else.
If this "bad code" problem was something new with Windows XP you might tend to overlook Gates' entire oeuvre. But every product Microsoft has sold has had serious defects, been engineered to be anti-useful, and sought to lard the customer with useless options while lightening the buyer's pocketbook through the use of monopoly pricing. This column has taken twice as long to prepare as it should have because of Gates' useless and counterintuitive features in MS Word.
Gates says he is now devoting himself to charity endeavors. He can never give back enough to make up for what he stole from the public. And, given his record as a Robber Baron of Cyberspace, I can only fear for the recipients of his forthcoming largesse. Will they have to use Microsoft products to qualify for his beneficence? More bad code.