Bob Wallace

A programmer, Wallace was one of 11 people who in 1978 founded a new company in Albuquerque, New Mexico, called "Micro Soft". (The company moved to a small town outside Seattle and is now known as "Microsoft".) He left the software giant in 1983 to found Quicksoft. His PC-Write program was one of the first professional software packages to be marketed with a new concept called "Shareware". Copies could be freely made, but if people wanted a manual and support, they had to register it by paying a $75 fee. "If I make enough money to live on, I will continue the experiment," he said when the program was released. "If not, I will approach software publishers to see if they are interested in marketing a PC-Write II version of the program for me commercially." It was a success: Quicksoft eventually grew to $2 million in annual sales, and he sold the company to another early Microsoft employee. His 450 shares of Microsoft weren't worth much until 1986, when the company went public. After a number of stock splits, the 450 shares became more than 100,000 shares. He died September 20 in San Rafael, Calif., from unknown causes at age 53. From This is True for 22 September 2002 Suggestions for further reading: Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace, Jim Erickson Amazon Price: $12.23 Customer Review: This book was written in 1992 and covers only Microsoft's first 15 or so years but these were the most interesting and the most instructive in terms of lessons for the wealth creator. There are now many Gates' biographies, but Hard Drive: Bill Gates ...   Cloud Computing, A Practical Approach by Toby Velte, Anthony Velte, Robert Elsenpeter Amazon Price: $26.39 Customer Review: Is your company considering migrating to the Cloud? What Cloud strategy is best for your organization? Are you having troubles identifying the major Cloud Vendors or even how to begin using their technology? Are you interested in knowing what the b...   How to Do Everything Microsoft SharePoint 2010 by Stephen Cawood Amazon Price: Customer Review: Stephen Cawood's new book on SharePoint 2010 has been written specifically for end users who want to get the most out of their SharePoint 2010 implementation. The book covers a lot of ground, including a history of SharePoint as well as a wealth of p...   Anthology of Scores to A History of Music in Western Culture, Volume II: The ... by Mark Evan Bonds Amazon Price: $66.33   Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry--and Made Himself the Ric... by Stephen Manes, Paul Andrews Amazon Price: $24.88 Customer Review: This book works on two levels. First, it is a good bio of the young Gates. Most people know him as this billionaire rich guy who controls much of the software industry, but there is another side. Gates was a passionate and (somewhat) endearing comput...   Newsfeed display by CaRP

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