Sunday, 15 July 2007

Late Gates nearly misses cyberspace race

By VIRGINIA WINDER

MICROSOFT man Bill Gates nearly missed the internet revolution because of security fears.
Surfing the net was banned in all Microsoft offices in the first half of the 1990s to prevent rival companies getting access to the company’s trade secrets.
Each day, thousands of sensitive emails circulated around the 30,000 onsite intranet PCs and Gates (pictured) didn’t want this information going further.
So, to go online, employers had to sign in and out of computers in the main library or browse the net at home.
It wasn’t until 1994, when Netscape launched its free search engine service, which was downloaded by millions of people worldwide, that Gates realised that cyberspace was the way of the future.
Now, his free Microsoft Network (MSN) is one of the world’s leading social networks, along with rivals Bebo, MySpace and Facebook.

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