Bill Gates is set to become a Knight. Yes, it is true. The co-founder of Microsoft will be awarded an honorary knighthood by the Queen of England tomorrow for his outstanding contribution to enterprise.
He will become a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order
of the British Empire, an honor that dates back to 1917, although
monarchs have been creating knights for hundreds of years.
Among the pomp and grandeur of the formal state rooms at the
palace, Gates will kneel in front of the sovereign, who will gently tap
him on the shoulder with a sword.
Citizens of the UK will be obliged to call him "Sir" from now on;
however you Americans, Indians, Chinese, Africans and all the rest will
not have to do that. Lucky you.
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Bill Gates gets honorary knighthood
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY
SEATTLE — Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday bestowed honorary knighthood on Microsoft
(MSFT) co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates.
Gates proclaimed himself "humbled and delighted."
In announcing the knighthood last year, Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw described Gates as "one of the most important
business leaders of his age," and credited Microsoft software with
having a "profound impact on the British economy." (Related: What makes a knight?)
Gates and his wife, Melinda, are also notable
philanthropists. They launched the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in
2000 with $26 billion to promote equity in global health and education.
The foundation has set up a $210 million international scholarship
program at Britain's University of Cambridge and invested millions of
dollars in research for an AIDS vaccine.
His wife described the queen as "engaging"
company and said they found plenty to talk about on issues such as
health problems in the developing world, the avian flu and their shared
interest in travel.
But on the subject of computers, it seems the monarch does not enjoy the same passion for technology as Gates.
"She said all the kids do (use computers), and
the computer helps to schedule things. But she said for she herself ...
typing is not as natural for her as it is for young people," Gates
said.
Like other non-Britons who've received the honor
— including Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former president
George Bush and movie mogul Steven Spielberg — Gates can append KBE, or
Knight Commander of the British Empire, to his name.
But he is not entitled to add the title "Sir," a
distinction reserved for British nationals. To achieve full knight
status, Gates would have to become a British citizen.
That's what the late Sir John Paul Getty II, son
of oil magnate J. Paul Getty, did. Born in America, the younger Getty,
who died in 2000 at age 70, was a lifelong Anglophile. He moved
permanently to Britain in 1971, setting up household on a 2,500-acre
estate, complete with his prized oval cricket ground. Sir Paul quietly
became the greatest philanthropist living in Britain.
Getty was made an honorary knight in 1986, and upgraded to the full honor in 1998, a year after becoming a British citizen.
By contrast, the Gateses and their three
children appear to be comfortably ensconced in a highly secure
five-acre residential compound partially buried into a hillside on the
shores of Seattle's Lake Washington. It includes a manmade trout
stream, garage space for dozens of vehicles and screens displaying
valuable art in digital form.
Straw's statement notwithstanding, critics say,
Microsoft's impact has not been uniformly positive. The European
Commission last March ruled Microsoft used illegal monopolistic
practices to extend its flagship Windows desktop operating system into
the computer server and media player markets.
"Being a convicted monopolist apparently doesn't
keep you from getting knighted," says Linux consultant and advocate
Bruce Perens. "I suppose monarchy and monopoly go well together."
Britain has been a big user of open-source
programming created by volunteers, including the Linux operating system
that competes against Windows.