Bill Gates is smiling again. The boyish enthusiasm is back,
and the grueling burdens of monopoly lawsuits and dot corn downturns are
receding. 61. America’s best-known billionaire is back to doing what he has
always done best-designing exciting new products and making barrels of
money. The launch of Office XP, a sophisticated rethink of
Microsoft’s most popular business tool at the end of this May, marks merely the
opening shot in a forthcoming technological blitz that Gates is serenely
convinced will cement his company’s status as the unshakeable colossus of
computing. 62. "It’s great to see people enthused about what
we are doing, "Gates happily declares. How different it all looked a
year or so ago, when the US Department of Justice won its claim that Microsoft
had abused its Windows monopoly, and a court ordered the company to split
itself in two. Then there was the dotcom trouble. Last year the bubble burst,
dragging down the shares of all high-tech companies, including Microsoft. The
rout eventually dislodged him from his status as the world’s richest
man. 63. During his 25 years at the helm of Microsoft, the
company he founded in the garage of his home in Seattle, Gates has gone through
a series of striking incarnations, from garage geek to ruthless executive to
generous philanthropist. Last year it seemed a new label might be added to
the list-busted flush. Battered by the pressures of the internet revolution-and
with two small children to raise, Gates handed executive control of Microsoft to
his long-standing friend and colleague, Steve Ballmer. Defeated
in court and depicted by rivals as corportate Attila the Hun, he seemed bitter
and angry. There were tales of him raging at the government officials he blamed
for persecuting him. 64. Gates turned for succour to his
first love--overseeing software development. Gates, now the Comeback
Kid, is sitting on a corportate cash pile of ＄ 30 billion and is
increasing it by ＄ 1 billion every month. Microsoft’s share price has rebounded
63% this year. 65. He looks sure to bounce right back up the
list of the world’s richest people. The company’s legal
problems are far from over, but a furious fightback has left many observers
sceptical that the government will ever succeed in breaking up Microsoft. An
appeals-court ruling, expected soon, is likely to overturn last year’s
lower-court decision.