Bill Gates and Microsoft’s lasting impact on tech

It’s quite amazing to think that a technology and a company which helped usher in the computer age for billions of people, had been around for 50 years.

Bill Gates and childhood friend Paul Allen founded what was first called “Micro-Soft” in 1975.

They launched the MS-DOS operating system that became known as Windows and went on to run most of the world’s computers.

Microsoft Office programmes, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint, became standard business tools, even fending off free Google Docs software.

ALSO READ: Microsoft warns of phishing campaign targeting Booking.com

Real computer fans, of course, preferred the funkier, more clever and better marketed products from Apple, which went on to become the world’s biggest brand, eclipsing Microsoft through its revolutionary iPhones.

Microsoft’s cofounder Gates has become a multiple billionaire over the years but thanks to social media – which amplifies the thoughts of dim people – he is now regarded by some as the man plotting to control the world’s people, or kill them with vaccines.

The irony, of course, is that many of those calling for his head do so using computer infrastructure mainly run by Microsoft products.

Those products – and other like them – have transformed the way we live. And that will be Gates’ legacy.

ALSO READ: WATCH: Ramaphosa hails Microsoft’s presence in SA amid US tensions