A window on Bill Gates

BILL Gates is a mass of contradictions. On one hand, he's the quintessential computer nerd - swotty and bespectacled with boyish looks and an awkward manner. On the other, he's a ruthless businessman who has dominated the computer industry for almost 30 years.

The middle child of a middle-class family, William Henry Gates was born in Seattle in 1955. Even as a youngster, he displayed the remarkable business acumen that would eventually make him the world's richest man. As a ten-year-old, he drew up a contract with his elder sister for unrestricted access to her baseball mitt in exchange for $5. His favourite board game was Risk, in which participants battle it out for world domination. This, apparently, is something he admits to without irony; the Microsoft chief is not noted for his sense of humour.

Despite obvious intelligence, he performed poorly at state school and in 1966 was sent to Seattle's Lakewood School, an advanced private institution. Not only did Lakewood help Gates achieve his academic potential, it gave him access to one of America's first educational computers.

He is said to have mastered it within a week and, by the age of 17, he had sold his first programme, a school timetabling system, which earned him $4,200.

It was at Lakeside that he met Paul Allen, a fellow computer enthusiast two years his senior. The pair kept in touch at Harvard, where Gates studied applied mathematics. They teamed up to write the first computer language programme for a personal computer and in 1975, they established Microsoft. A year later, Gates dropped out of Harvard to concentrate on his new business venture.

At first the pair were treated like "kids in the playground" by executives in the rapidly expanding computer industry. According to classmate Tim Thompson, this reminded Gates of his days at high school when he was often ridiculed by fellow pupils.

"Bill hated to be told no by lesser people. The computer gave him the opportunity to prove his point... He wanted to take all these guys in suits and with one big, great swipe put them out of business".

The company grew rapidly but the big break came in 1980 when Gates made a typically shrewd deal to supply the software for the new IBM personal computer - MS-DOS. Microsoft was allowed to license the operating system to other manufacturers, giving rise to a generation of IBM-compatible computers that depended on Microsoft's operating system.

The company floated on the stock market in 1986 for $61m and catapulted Gates to the top of the rich list. Now 48, his personal wealth is an estimated £28bn.

For a while, Gates was an all-American hero, who, despite his billions, remained a likeable nerd. His untidy appearance and absent-minded ways were endearing but they were also misleading.

Gates was fiercely ambitious; he had to be to make Microsoft the world's largest computer software company in a notoriously competitive business. There was clearly another side to the nerd and, in the early 1990s, public opinion began to turn against the former wonder boy.

There were rumours about his enormous ego, his bullying, womanising and thirst for power. He was said to be a control freak, driven by a fear of failure and a desire for revenge against the 'big boys' who ridiculed him as a child. Perhaps even more worryingly for him, accusations abounded that the innovative ideas on which he built his fortune were not all his own.

It's inevitable that Gates should have attracted critics and made enemies. Such phenomenal success always creates bitterness and jealousy, but there seems to have been a certain amount of foundation in the criticism.

By the late 1980s, Gates controlled more than 80 per cent of the global operating systems market and in 1990, after receiving complaints from Microsoft's competitors, the US Federal Trade Commission began to investigate the company. This was followed by investigations in Europe and a probe by the US Justice Department, which ended with Gates taking the stand in court. It was alleged that Microsoft had used its monopoly in the operating systems market to squeeze out competition in other areas.

The company was also successfully sued for patent infringement by Stac electronics, a small Californian software company, while industry pioneer Gary Kildall questioned the genesis of MS-DOS, claiming it was a clone of his own system.

Gates, once acknowledged as the smartest person in computing, has shown himself to be fallible. He seriously misjudged the potential of the Internet, leaving Microsoft scrambling to catch up. He recently admitted he had not fully exploited search engine technology, allowing Google to become the market leader.

But typically, he promised that Microsoft would soon outstrip its rival. It seems Gates is still determined to succeed, even though he stepped down as Microsoft chief executive in 2000, saying he wanted to immerse himself in the work he loves most - programming.

But there is more to Bill Gates than big business and computing. He married Melinda French, a Microsoft employee, on New Year's Day 1994. Until then, he had been garnering a reputation as something of a Lothario but, according to friends, marriage is one of the best things that has happened to him. Melinda is said to be "utterly normal", exactly what the workaholic entrepreneur needs to root him in reality.

In the past, he was accused of hoarding his vast fortune, but is now a leading philanthropist. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, which he runs with his wife, has overtaken the London-based Wellcome Foundation as the world's biggest charitable foundation, with assets of $14bn. It has already spent $1.9bn on health projects in the developing world and Gates has vowed to give away all of his wealth, apart from a few million dollars for his two children.

In September last year he donated $100bn to wipe out malaria, almost doubling what the rest of the world - governments, charities and the UN - spend on a disease that kills one million people every year.

The foundation has also established a scholarship scheme to enable the brightest students to go to Cambridge University - the single biggest international educational scholarship programme set up in the United Kingdom. With an estimated worth of $220m, it allows 230 students to study at Cambridge University.

Yesterday, it was announced that Gates is to be awarded an honorary knighthood "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to enterprise, employment, education and the voluntary sector in the United Kingdom".

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw described him as "one of the most important global business leaders of this age".

Whatever anyone says about Gates - and he certainly has his fair share of detractors - his achievement is undeniable. He is a giant in the world of computer technology and one of the world's most successful businessmen. Not bad for a geeky college drop-out.