That's rich: Gates tops Forbes list once again

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Actually he couldn't

First of all, Gate's wealth isn't connected to the prices of Microsoft's products or how much money the company makes. His wealth is, however, connected to the price of Microsoft's stock since he owns about 1B shares of it. His salary is around $700,000, you could get the exact number from any financial website by pulling executive's profiles. The rest of his fortune is from his other investments.

Second, just because competition exists doesn't automatically mean that Microsoft must lower its prices. Unless they're losing customers to competition *because* of higher prices, there's no reason to lower anything. That said, they are actually lowering prices. In small business space, Linux is a very viable threat to Microsoft. As such, the price of Small Business Server has gone down from $1500 for SBS2000 to $600 for SBS 2003. If you look at prices of consumer Windows, it hasn't changed in the past 9 years. Windows 95 upgrade was $99 in 1995. Windows XP Home upgrade is $99 today. Now compare that to rest of consumer prices and you'll find that adjusted for inflation the price has actually gone down from 1995.

Posted by: AngryKitten   Posted on: 09/24/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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