Bill Gates just got made a Knight of the British Empire. What would he would have got if he had made a reliable bit of software?

An unlimited lifetime free pass at Hooters !

Say it aint true! How the heck did he get that honor? Don't you have to be at least a UK citizen? Doesn't seem fair. LOL.

He can put KBE after his name, but just won't be Sir Bill.

So, how much did the Royal funds go up by before this happened?

well he almost single handedly K.O.ed the evil I.B.M. empire so well deserved me thinks.

They probably make the list on a windows machine and he used a trojan to get in :)

I've always thought that woman Prince Charles is seeing looked a bit odd, now I know why, it was really Bill in Drag.

It's only an honorary knighthood and, theoretically, it's for giving however many squillions of dollars through the Gates Foundation(s). That's according to the report on BBC Radio 4. I'm inclined to believe it because many people have bought themselves a K with a lot less money than he's got. If BG had really wanted it, he could have afforded it long before now.

...but just won't be Sir Bill.

Nope, rumour has it that he prefers to be called Sir Haxedalot :-]

No, actually he used the nickname 'DarthVader' when playing games online/lan, but that was a long time ago.

He still answers when people refer to him by that nickname.

-Chris (former M$ employee)

Message edited on: 03/03/2005 09:13

Well, Sir Gate was good by the bill it seems. He certainly has changed his tune over the years. When he first became a billionaire he was crucified as the cheapest philanthropist in the world, not wanting to part with his money. After a scorching in the local papers, he immediately set out the PR campaign to remedy the situation. Seems like hes since discovered that charity brings a great return in tax write-offs. I.B.M. thought at the time that the general public was too ignorant and would be disinterested for there to be a market for home computers and thats why they so easily outsourced the writing for the OS (which he didnt write) to the then mini kit garage hacker Bill Gates who very shrewdly kept ownership of the OS and I.B.M. thought nothing of it at the time. That is, until they saw first hand that indeed there was a market to be had, but by then, the damage had been done, Bill Gates had launched a free give away program to schools and business companies and they had been hooked by its Mac-like (copycat?) simplicity of interface navigation. Now, Sir Gates makes si big bucks!