ABSTRACT
In 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded MicroSoft (the hyphen was later removed). The market for personal computers was in its infancy, but Gates and Allen believed personal computers would play a great role in the future. It is fascinating to read about the early years in Bill Gates’s life and how he got involved with computers. There is no doubt both Gates and Allen were bright young men without whom Microsoft would probably not be the company it is today.1 Since its inception, Microsoft has been a leading player in the operating systems market, and early on it also rose to dominance in the software market. During its thirty years in existence, there have been many key strategies that have helped Microsoft become a powerful player in the market. This chapter will focus on the strategies used by Microsoft to gain market power and the resulting antitrust court cases that came about as a result of that power.
