Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has another trophy to place on his mantelpiece. Gates, who turns 50 in October, was voted the person who has "had the greatest impact on business computing in the past half century" in a poll of IT specialists. The poll was conducted by the IBM Share user group celebrating its 50th anniversary this week in Boston.
Gates captured 55 percent of the votes while Tom Watson, Jr. collected 40 percent and IBM computer developer Gene Amdahl had 39 percent. Amdahl went on to build plug-compatible mainframes for his own company.
Thirty-one percent of the respondents chose Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee, followed by Texas Instruments chip innovator Jack Kilby, 22 percent, and software pioneer Grace Hopper, 19 percent. Linux innovator Linus Torvalds was further down the list with 10 percent followed by Apple Computer's Steve Jobs with 8 percent. The base 444 number of respondents picked several persons each in the poll.
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