Bill Gates

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc. unveiled yesterday its boldest move yet to challenge Microsoft Corp.'s flagship Office brand of business computer programs. Google is positioning its Apps Premier Edition as a low-cost alternative to Microsoft's Office, which has about 450 million users. Google's software bundle is to be sold for a $50 annual fee per user. "With Google Apps, our customers can tap into technology and innovation at a fraction of the cost of traditional installed solutions," said Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google's enterprise division.

With a college degree in hand, you're ready to conquer the real world. Or you snagged that coveted internship and you're ready to experience what the workplace is all about. But before you enter the rat race, there are a few things you probably didn't learn in college that you need to know. I've asked Mary Crane, a business coach and consultant, to provide some advice for young workers on how to get ahead. Crane, a lawyer and former Capitol Hill lobbyist, trains young workers at Fortune 500 companies and law firms on business etiquette and other workplace issues, such as generational concerns.

"The Plot to Get Bill Gates: An Irreverent Investigation of the World's Richest Man ... and the People Who Hate Him," by Gary Rivlin. Times Books. 360 pages. $25.Bill Gates is not merely the richest person alive; he's also just about the most unavoidable.His colossal software company, Microsoft Corp., furnishes the operating systems of most of the world's personal computers. His bland, bespectacled face has adorned innumerable magazine covers.His every action, whether it's building a $60 million mansion or getting hauled into court by the federal government, is parsed and pilloried in Web sites and newspaper articles around the globe.

The leaders of several small warring countries and a giant in the computer industry have all been singled out as suspects. So have the World Bank, NATO and the credit card system.With the millennium in easy reach, a cross section of Christians who interpret the Bible literally, along with a good number of others who may never have opened a Bible, share a common vision of the future. They expect the Antichrist to appear any day.From the start of Christianity, candidates for the role of Satan's protege have never been lacking.

It's 1984. Apple founder Steve Jobs ushers in a new world order with the introduction of the Macintosh computer. He announces his creation with a TV commercial that becomes legendary, a Ridley Scott-directed ode to George Orwell's "1984," complete with faceless minions and Big Brother watching from a giant video screen.When a young woman runs up to the screen and smashes it, the message to those in the know is clear: Big Brother (or, more accurately, Big Blue, aka IBM) was being knocked down a peg from its position atop the high-tech world of computers.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah hatched a plan 25 years ago to compile a comprehensive work documenting African history from 3 million B.C. to modern times.Back then, when the pair met as students at Cambridge University in England, CD-ROMs didn't exist and the personal computer industry was in its infancy. The Internet was a text-only network limited to the United States and used only by the government and universities. So they envisioned their project as a traditional encyclopedia.

IF YOU'VE BEEN worrying about this Y2K computer problem, you can relax. I am pleased to report that, according to computer experts, everything is totally under control. There is absolutely nothing to worry about. In fact, you might as well stop reading this article right now!I said, there is nothing to worry about and you should stop reading this column right now.OK, good. We have gotten rid of the idiots who still actually believe the news media. We are down to the savvy individuals like you -- people who know, from personal experience, that nothing involving computers is ever "under control"; people who have attempted to perform some seemingly simple computer-related task, such as connecting a computer to a printer, and eventually decided -- after weeks of puzzling over manuals written in the Ewok language and trying to communicate with "Technical Support" -- that the only workable printing solution is to hold a piece of blank paper in front of the computer screen and trace the words manually.

In the fall of 1995, I bought a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion computer loaded with Microsoft Windows 95. But when I turned it on, Windows 95 wasn't what I saw. Instead, I was greeted by a cute, colorful animated screen that made it easy to launch programs and otherwise navigate through everyday use of the computer.Many other PC manufacturers were doing the same thing -- they had concluded that Windows 95 was still too confusing for many of their customers, particularly first-time buyers.Their motives weren't entirely altruistic.

SEATTLE -- When John D. Rockefeller turned his attention to philanthropic causes earlier this century, he relied in many ways on his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr., for help in deciding how to disburse his colossal oil fortune. Father and son brooded, at times to the verge of mental exhaustion, over how hard it was to give away money in an intelligent and useful fashion.It may be a while before William H. Gates III, the 43-year-old founder and chairman of Microsoft Corp. and the wealthiest person on the planet, asks his children for help with his philanthropic endeavors.

Other than buying the pink Cadillac for Mama and fancy gates for the mansion, the average rich guy has to grapple with the same personal finance issues as everybody else.OK, not quite. But the differences are mostly a matter of degree. The fact remains that even Bill Gates needs a strategy for managing his money that takes his needs and goals into account."What's interesting is all of the basic strategies are very similar and a lot of times are the same strategies. They're just on a bigger scale," said Lyle K. Benson Jr., president of L. K. Benson & Co.Benson's firm specializes in what financial advisers call "high-end clients" -- in his case, investors with between $2 million and $50 million in assets.

I like the way Malcolm Gladwell thinks. Let me rephrase that. I like the way Malcolm Gladwell makes me think. The New Yorker essayist and frizzy-haired thinker of deep thoughts has just published his third book on how to look at the world from an unexpected angle. It is titled Outliers: The Story of Success, and in it Gladwell shoots down that particularly American theory that success is a Horatio Alger combination of brilliance and determination. Those qualities certainly help. But Gladwell uses his special brand of pop sociology and a collection of intriguing anecdotes to postulate that timing has as much to do with success as grit and brains.

Bill Gates is bullish on inflation. He's putting tens of millions into the Western Asset-Claymore Inflation-Linked Securities & Income Fund, which rises with consumer prices over the long term. The fund is managed by Legg Mason's Western Asset unit in Pasadena, Calif. Through his Cascade Investment vehicle, Gates has been buying the inflation fund (ticker WIA) at least since June, when he first declared ownership of more than 10 percent of its shares. In mid-June he owned 2.9 million shares worth about $36 million.

NEW YORK - Bill Gates and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced yesterday that they will spend $500 million to stop people around the world from smoking. The World Health Organization estimates that tobacco will kill up to a billion people in the 21st century, most of them in poor and middle-income countries. In an effort to cut that number, Bloomberg's foundation plans to commit $250 million over four years on top of $125 million he announced two years ago. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is allocating $125 million over five years.

Bill Gates is retiring, sort of. He is still only 52, and he is going off to spend more time guiding the world's richest philanthropy, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He will still be Microsoft's chairman and largest shareholder, but yesterday was his last day as a full-time worker at the software giant, marking the unofficial end of his career as a business leader. And what a career it has been. Gates has been an animating force behind the personal computer revolution, helping to build a global industry and engineer blockbuster products such as Windows and Office.

Ken Schaffer recently bought a professional-quality camera. The Ellicott City business owner and amateur photographer wanted to learn the computer program Photoshop so he could play around with his pictures. That is why he spent a recent Thursday at Marriotts Ridge High School - where his daughter is a ninth-grader - doctoring a photo of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Schaffer followed along as two Marriotts Ridge students, juniors Patrick Talcott and Thomas Conchie, guided him through drawing a dotted line around Gates' head, then dragging the head off Gates' body.

If you hit it off with Mark Kresel - and chances are you will - he'll eventually want to know one thing: "Can I give you a birdhouse?" He'll ask in a voice husky with sincerity: "Can I?" The 58-year-old textile salesman has bestowed his handmade creations on the woman who sold him his daily Dunkin' Donut, his barber, his doctor and dozens of clients in exotic locations throughout Russia, South America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Everyone in his Fork neighborhood - all up and down Catalpa Road, which is not a short street - boasts an original Kresel.

The new Zunes are coming! The new Zunes are coming! But will anyone care? Just weeks after Apple raised the bar with a refreshed lineup of iPods, Microsoft is poised to release a refreshed lineup of Zunes. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates showed the new Zunes, scheduled to go on sale in mid-November, to reporters this week. The original Zune now has an 80-gigabyte version; two new flash memory-based models come in 4 GB and 8 GB versions as well as several new colors, though none of the new Zunes is brown.

With a college degree in hand, you're ready to conquer the real world. Or you snagged that coveted internship and you're ready to experience what the workplace is all about. But before you enter the rat race, there are a few things you probably didn't learn in college that you need to know. I've asked Mary Crane, a business coach and consultant, to provide some advice for young workers on how to get ahead. Crane, a lawyer and former Capitol Hill lobbyist, trains young workers at Fortune 500 companies and law firms on business etiquette and other workplace issues, such as generational concerns.

MEXICO CITY -- Telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helu has built a corporate empire so vast that it's nearly impossible for most Mexicans to go a day without slipping a few pesos into his pocket. Forbes magazine recently estimated his net worth at $49 billion. That represented a $19 billion increase from 2006, the biggest one-year increase in a decade for anyone on the magazine's annual list of the world's richest people. Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates' $56 billion helped him retain the top spot.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc. unveiled yesterday its boldest move yet to challenge Microsoft Corp.'s flagship Office brand of business computer programs. Google is positioning its Apps Premier Edition as a low-cost alternative to Microsoft's Office, which has about 450 million users. Google's software bundle is to be sold for a $50 annual fee per user. "With Google Apps, our customers can tap into technology and innovation at a fraction of the cost of traditional installed solutions," said Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google's enterprise division.