Philippe Kahn
"The industry is transitioning from the PC to the world of the iPhone [and] Google, yet Bill's legacy will endure."
Philippe Kahn is chief executive of Fullpower Technologies, and founder of Borland Software.
Bill Veghte
"There's a bunch of things that I have learned. Having the scale of ambition is at the core of it. [Bill would say:] 'When you think about it, don't think about it in millions; think about it in hundreds of millions.'"
"The second thing, I would say, (that) has been so important and inspiring [is]: there are people [who], as they go through life, get money or get power or whatever â€" whether it be in politics or sports. The true test of the person is: when you get that power and you get that money, does it corrupt the soul?"
"We were in a meeting the other day on our approach to search. It was just Bill, myself and one other person working through some things. Toe for toe, [Gates] is a guy [who] is at least as passionate as us. He's seen everything. He doesn't have to sit in this meeting. He's as passionate, as aggressive and as excited as anyone else."
"The thing that is so inspirational for me about Bill is that, with all that he's done, his hunger, his aspiration, his optimism hasn't dissipated. How he's chosen to apply that power, that money, that capability is inspiring."
Bill Veghte is senior vice president of Microsoft's Online Services & Windows Business Group.
George Colony
"'Constructive monopolism' is Bill Gates's single most important legacy," George Colony wrote in his blog.
"He has not been an innovator in technology â€" in polite circles, we would call him derivative; in less genteel terms, we would call him a plagiarist. Gates has been a business innovator, not a technology innovator."
"As I look back, I think that Gates's 'constructive monopolism' most closely parallels Thomas Edison's. They both created pretty good technologies and then worked, using many means, to get them accepted by more users than their competitors. [Nikola] Tesla and [Steve] Jobs are two sides of the same coin."
George Colony is chief executive of Forrester Research.
Robert Metcalfe
"Bill Gates is a great guy: really smart and he's not evil, even though I've criticised him harshly. I wrote the first column criticising Microsoft for anti-competitive behaviour. It appeared in Computerworld, [marking] the beginning of my journalistic career on 25 February, 1991."
"In my column, 'Viewpoint', the headline was: 'Is Microsoft abusing its power?' I had problems relating to Bill Gates after that because I was highly critical of anti-competitive behaviour, which I had detected in 1991. The occasion was Go Corporation â€" the false announcement of Pen Windows in order to pre-emptively destroy Go."
"Anyway, he's a god. If you have to have a richest guy in the world, Bill Gates is an awfully good choice."
Robert Metcalfe is co-inventor of Ethernet, founder of 3Com and Metcalfe's Law, and general partner of Polaris Venture Partners.
Dan Bricklin
"He was pretty game for a lot of things in the industry. He'd come and he'd dance at industry events, and that's pretty tough when everybody is watching you and you're not necessarily the best athlete. But he did that stuff; he did what was necessary for the company and things like that. I always respected him for being willing to be a statesman of our industry to the rest of the world."
"I remember going to a conference that Microsoft had â€" I think it was for Pen Computing â€" and they had all us techies there. The party was over at Bill's house, and we had run of the house... I wouldn't do that."
"What he's willing to do for his business, that's pretty hard-core. And that image of working real hard, getting what he did, and giving it back the way he's giving back, which isn't the easy way to give back â€" it's a great image for others. I'm really pleased that he did it, and I hope he's happy."
Dan Bricklin is co-creator of the VisiCalc spreadsheet program, and founder and president of Software Garden and Trellix.
