Gates Can’t Debug Boston Crowd Mit Students Hiss Microsoft Chairman Despite Donation

Bill Gates had just departed Boston’s Computer Museum Wednesday, leaving behind a pledge of $100,000 in computer gear for poor kids in the city’s Roxbury and the South End sections.

Now, he lounged on the gray leather back seat of the Chrysler LHS on his way to address an Internet conference at Harvard University like a man without a care. Didn’t even buckle his seat belt. Perhaps he figured that if the car smacked a lamppost, he’d emerge without a scratch.

The chairman of Microsoft Corp. has a knack for dodging disaster. Just a few months ago, plenty of computer-industry experts were about to award Gates the Gary Kildall Award for Missed Opportunities. Kildall was the guy who missed out on the chance to supply IBM with an operating system for its first personal computers. An unknown firm called Microsoft got the job instead.

Last year Netscape Communications Corp. became a billion-dollar firm almost overnight, by capitalizing on a market Gates had neglected - the Internet. Pundits said Gates had been asleep at the switch, and predicted that Internet-based computing could spell doom for Microsoft’s near-monopoly.

Gates admits they were right. “We started work on Internet-based things two years ago, but it was only a year ago that we said, ‘Wow, this is the big thing,”’ he said. “If we hadn’t paid attention to the Internet, believe me, it might take a few years, but eventually Windows would be history.”

But things can happen rather fast when a multibillionaire starts to pay attention. In the past six months, the company launched a furious campaign to become a leader in Internet software. Microsoft purchased Cambridge-based Vermeer Technologies to capture that firm’s powerful World Wide Web publishing software. Microsoft rolled out Internet server software, and began giving it away. And the latest version of the company’s browser, while riddled with bugs, offers nearly as many flashy features as the industry-leading Netscape Navigator.

“I think at this point, there’s widespread respect for what we’re doing and certainly we’re viewed as one of the major players,” Gates opined.

But Microsoft still has what the marketers like to call a “mindshare” problem. The company may be respected, but it’s not much liked. During Gates’ visit to MIT, many students hissed at the mention of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. Perhaps the donation to the Computer Museum will soften the company’s image. It’ll certainly make some computers available to children from PC-deprived households.

In any case, when you suggest to Gates that Microsoft is regarded as the computer industry’s Evil Empire, he’ll concede half the point - the part about being an empire. “I’m certainly the head of the most popular company,” he said. “More people choose to buy our software than any other company’s.”