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想想Bill Gates 跟我同一天生日勒...
不論你是否是蓋茲迷，但他在電腦界過去30年所造成的影響是有目共睹。
隨著他今年中在微軟正式退休，在科技共和國（TechRepublic)上有篇檢視我們能從他身上學到的事情，看看，挺有趣。

With the Bill Gates era coming to an end at Microsoft, this is the perfect opportunity to look back and examine five preeminent lessons we have learned from the world's greatest computer geek.
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Whether or not you are a fan of Bill Gates, it is impossible to deny the impact he has made on the spread of computer technology across the planet during the past three decades. Since Friday was Gates' last day as a full-time Microsoft employee, this is the perfect time to look back at five of the most important lessons we've learned from the meteoric, tumultuous, and lucrative career of the world's most famous software engineer.

5. Geeks can be businessmen, too 電腦宅男也能出頭天

Before Bill Gates, computer programmers were mostly considered to be a necessary evil for businesses. They were stereotyped as misanthropic weirdos that you stick in dark corners in the back office. However, Gates, became the most successful businessman on earth — if you judge business success by profits — and almost singlehandedly transformed the term 「geek」 from an insult to a badge of honor in the process.

在蓋茲之前，電腦工程師通常都被定位成從火星來常常躲在辦公室角落的怪胎。如果用金錢來衡量，蓋茲是地球上最成功的生意人之ㄧ，而且讓geek (電腦宅男)一詞從貶成褒的轉變者。

4. You don't have to be first to win 要贏不用當第一

Gates and Microsoft rarely got to the party first with new technologies and innovations, but they were simply better at bringing technology products to the masses than anyone else in the industry. Internet Explorer is the most famous example, but Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel are also great examples. Microsoft was merely better at executing. It didn't hurt that Microsoft often had the most resources, but Gates and Co. showed over and over again that they knew how to best take advantage of those resources.

當有新科技獲新技術出現時，蓋茲跟微軟很少成為新領域的領頭者，但是他們的強項是將科技產品有效的、大量的傳遞給大眾，這是無人能敵的。微軟的 IE就是個有名的例子(按編:從後面把好用的NetScape幾乎完全擠出市場)。微軟的Office 系列也是(按編: 想當年Word Perfect才是王道阿 ) 微軟在執行上絕對是第一。微軟不但有豐富的資源，而且非常懂得如何有效運用這些資源。

3. Computing will spread everywhere 電腦世代來臨

In the 1980s when the computer was still mostly a novelty, Gates expressed his vision that there would one day be 「a computer on every desk and in every home.」 That vision has nearly become a reality in the U.S. and it's in the process of coming to fruition across the globe. Plus, Gates' vision of the computing experience has continued to inspire the industry in general as well as Microsoft's product plans — from the smartphone to the Tablet PC to speech recognition to the touch-based interface.

80年代，電腦還算是個奢侈品，但是蓋茲那個時候就有這樣的遠見，表示有一天每張桌子跟每個家庭都會有電腦。看看四周，有些人可能還擁有超過一台電腦哩。微軟的產品計畫也是隨著蓋茲的遠景策畫著，從smartphone 到 Tablet PC 到語音辨識到觸控螢幕..etc.

2. Arrogance breeds failure 傲慢為失敗之母

In the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, the Bill Gates character says to Steve Ballmer, 「Success is a menace. It fools smart people into thinking that they can't lose.」 He was referring to IBM and the fact that it let Microsoft sneak in and steal the thunder in the launch of the PC. A decade later, Microsoft's own success and arrogance led to its anti-trust defeat to the U.S. government. But Microsoft also remained humble and paranoid enough to always be on the lookout for the next small company that might do to it what it had done to IBM. Some of the most popular targets in its cross hairs: Apple, Netscape, Linux, and Google.

在「矽谷海盜（台譯：微軟英雄）」一片中，蓋茲這個腳色跟微軟執行長 Steve Ballmer 說「成功是一種恐嚇，讓聰明的人開始覺得自己不能輸。」他是暗指IBM這個藍色巨人，讓微軟趁隙搶入PC的地盤。10年後，微軟自己也被自己的成功與傲慢反噬，被反托斯法案纏身數年。但是微軟仍然持續的盯緊那些有希望成為下一個微軟的小公司...

1. Software matters 軟體是王道

The one message that Bill Gates spent his career reiterating was that software matters. Gates and Microsoft always believed in the magic of software to create amazing digital experiences. When 「Micros-Soft」 (as it was originally known) first launched in the 1970s, the computer business was all about the hardware. It was Gates and his vision of what people could do with computers that moved software to the center of the computing experience.

蓋茲在他的生涯中，不停的提醒大家『軟體是王道』。蓋茲與微軟持續相信軟體的魔術可以帶給大眾神奇的數位體驗。30年前電腦產業的主角絕對是硬體，是蓋茲與他的遠景持續將配角扶正，讓軟體在現在的電腦世界中發光發熱。