Leadership the Bill Gates Way

Many analysts felt that one of the most important contributions of Gates to the company was the development of innovative and aggressive marketing strategies. Gates spent most of his time meeting a large number of the company's customers. A master at making deals, he entered into several successful deals with them since the establishment of Microsoft.

A shrewd judge of the potential of software products, he purchased DOS for only a few thousand dollars and converted it into one of Microsoft's best-selling products. Gates successfully predicted future trends and positioned Microsoft's products in such a way that they soon became best selling products...

Although many analysts appreciated Gates for his visionary leadership and invaluable contributions to the software industry, he was also criticized for several reasons. The critics argued that Microsoft was not an innovative company. They said that Gates reformed existing products to satisfy customer needs instead of inventing new ones. Analysts also argued that Microsoft's overwhelming market share was a major impediment to innovation in the software industry. Microsoft was not just the market leader, but also the standards provider for the industry...