Bill Gates wishes he wasn't richest in world

I was pretty surprised to see the article published yesterday in CNN Monday magazine web site today.

Here is his quote, followed by some ideas for what Bill Gates can do to assuage his aching conscience with some auspicious do-gooding.

Bill Gates wishes he wasn't richest in world - May. 4, 2006:

I wish I wasn't. There is nothing good that comes out of that, said Gates, whose personal fortune sank by billions since last week when the software giant disappointed investors by saying new investments would crimp earnings.

Here is my list of things Bill Gates could do, along with continuing his international medical charity work, if he were earnest in that regard.

1. Extend Windows XP Home support for two years past the ship date of Vista, instead of dropping it any month now.


2. Stop promising consumers safer computing, and then focusing on DRM instead


3. Stop charging consumers high fees for handling tech support calls, and then transferring their call to India instead.


4. Stop charging American consumers any more than Asian customers for the same product.


5. Eliminate OEM versions of MS-Windows that only work with the PC it was bought with, since the hardware will be obsolete in a few years anyway but the OS is current for almost 6 years and counting.


6. Stop lobbying Congress in the US.


7. Sever family and corporate ties with disgraced lobbiest Abramov, who was an employee of the law firm of Business Software Alliance, Microsoft's lobbying organization.


8. Get Windows running on alternative processors like PowerPC (after all, Apple supports more than one type of CPU) so that consumers get some diversity in their PC products.


9. Fund more scholarships for American CS and IT students instead of off-shoring their future profession to distant countries.


10. Test software before shipping it, to get the serious, dangerous bugs out.


11. Give value from software sales back to the consumers who paid for it, instead of the stock traders who did not.


12. Actually support the W3 standards in Microsoft products, instead of being proprietary and incompatible.

Bill Gates does some good things, as did many people from both sides of the street in American folklore.


By doing more of those, and less of the other type - he would be less rich, and better appreciated. If what he is saying is true, that is what he wants to do.



Sure, they would cost a little more. But now it sounds like money is no object.

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