Who is the most powerful person in the computer industry? Arguably it is the frail, bespectacled, boyish figure shown below, the essential computer nerd, William Gates, 35. His Microsoft Corp., which he co-founded two years after dropping out of Harvard, is to computer software what IBM is to hardware -- and now the two companies, formerly partners, are contenders in one of the industry's most important battles.
Like IBM, Microsoft dwarfs its competitors. With $1.5 billion in sales and a market value of $12 billion, it is eight times larger than its nearest rival, Lotus Development. Gates is the world's youngest...
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