Technology today is present in our everyday lives. ATMs, watches, PC's right down to the TV we watch everynight, technology plays a major role. Who determines what will be next? It is not the topic of what will be next that this paper will deal with but the person who will have a hand in it and his insights and predictions, Bill Gates and the Microsoft corporation. " The Road Ahead" written by Bill Gates founder of Microsoft, reads like a Nostradamis forecasting book. The book answers seven major questions: "How will our lives change?"," How long will it take?", "Will our jobs become obsolete?"," What about privacy?", "What about our children?"," What are good opportunities?", and "How should we prepare?". Bill Gates " The Road Ahead completely revised and up-to-date" is the second edition to his best selling book "The Road Ahead". The book comes with a interactive CD-ROM that gives you a look ahead of things to come, a tour of the Gate's multi-million dollar house in S!
             eattle Washington, a sit down interview with Mr. Gates on were the Internet and Microsoft is going, direct access to The Road Ahead web site and the text of The Road Ahead complete with hundreds of multimedia hyperlinks. It is in these three hundred plus pages that Bill Gates foresees what and how life will change. If this paper were to deal with all if Mr. Gates's predictions, it would exceed the 1500 to 2000 word limit. It is the scope of this paper to deal with several topics that this writer feels is crucial to development of technology and were it is going and how it is going to get there.
             In chapters one and three, the story of the birth of the Microsoft corporation and how Bill Gates and his partner Paul Allen made Microsoft software the standard not the option. How many of us loved playing with computers? Playing with my commodore 64 ...