SAN JOSE, Calif. — Many books will be written about the career of Bill Gates, but they can all be summarized in two words: He won. Early in his career, he won the battle against Apple to establish the PC as the platform for the personal computer over the Mac. He won the battle against IBM to establish Windows as the PC operating system against OS/2. He bested Lotus and Novell in the applications and LAN businesses. He slapped down Larry Ellison's half-baked notion of the NetPC. More recently, he won the battle against Netscape to establish Internet Explorer as...