Microsoft after Gates, Bill without Microsoft
As Bill Gates prepares to walk away from Microsoft, both the man and the company he founded will face challenges getting along without each other, according to the new issue of Newsweek magazine.
Gates, who is stepping down from his full-time role at Microsoft this week to focus on his $37 billion charitable foundation, is the subject of an article that profiles Microsoft's successes and failures during his tenure, as well as the difficult transition the company and its founder will likely face. (CNET News.com plans to publish its own retrospective on Gates' departure, but in the meantime, you might want to refresh yourself with some stories from when the transition was announced.)
We will likely be seeing more of Bill Gates with people such as U2 front man Bono (like in this video), working on famine relief and education.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET News.com)While the Newsweek story mentions Microsoft's challenges in antitrust probes, Windows Vista versus Windows XP, and the Internet search arena, the story also offers intimate perspectives from the people who know him the best, as well as Gates himself.
"He's not just Bill Gates, he's the Bill Gates," Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO and Gates' right-hand man for decades:
He founded the company, he's accumulated this wealth, he's got this foundation, he's got this fame. That's irreplaceable. Also, Bill grew up with every one of the technologies in this company. He's got more capacity to remember things than anybody I've ever known. It's unlikely we'll have anybody again who has that breadth.
Gates was also responsible for stoking the fires of urgency at the software giant, said Ray Ozzie, who took over Gates' job as chief software architect:
A lot of the company's strength is that Bill created a culture of crisis--if there weren't a Google, we'd have to make one. This is a period of unprecedented strength for the company. If there had to be a time when Bill transitioned out, we couldn't have set it up better than it is right now.
Paul Allen, who co-founded the company with Gates, remarked from the perspective of his own departure from the company in 1983:
You don't always realize how dramatic that transition is going to be when people aren't depending on your decisions day by day.
So how about Bill? Is he going to miss being in the trenches, slugging it out with Apple, Google, and Mozilla? It doesn't sound like it from what he told the magazine:
This whole thing about which operating system somebody uses is a pretty silly thing versus issues involving starvation or death.
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
I want to wish him well on his retirement..HE IS A GREAT MAN !!
Microsoft became big because they make you accept their standard. When I used the word Windows, more people think of Microsoft Windows than think of windows.
Microsoft has held back computer technology by years if not decades. His greed and ego played a large role in Microsoft becoming the huge pseudo-monopoly that it is. The garbage these people put out has made him a billionaire, but the shoddy software has also empowered con artists and criminals like the Russian mafia who have taken advantage of it's poor quality by turning peoples computers into spam zombies, or by extorting money from innocent people through software scams made possible by the atrocious security that windows has.
Gates' motivation has always been greed and power, NEVER putting out a quality product. Windows has been designed from the ground up to lock out competition and take unfair advantage of the fact that people want compatibility with others to make their life and/or job easier.
Don't let the door hit you in the butt on your way out Mr Gates.
'poor quality' is a ABM shills mantra. Nothing more
MSFT has not been a darling of Wall Street for some time. The MSFT historic highs were more than a decade ago, and they are trading at fraction of the historic high. For the last eight years MSFT has traded in a rather narrow band of generally plus or minus about $6 for where the stock is now.
The Wall Street folks have generally not paid much attention to MSFT. When Vista did nto rake in the immediate sales and profits MSFT stated it would, MSFT went back to the expected trading pattern it has had for the last eight years.
Bill gates is in reality little more than a figure head of MSFT now. Ballmer is not much either other than is chair tossing stunt and monkey boy antics.
The MSFT we see now and what we will likely see in even five to ten years may well be very different. MSFT is now starting to face very serious competative forces. They have proven, over and over, they do not play well with others. No amount of chest pounding by MSFT "fanboys" is going to change that. The money in software has little to do with home users, but the professional (business) side of computing. Vista has not been received well in that segment of the market. That alone has been a huge cost to MSFT. Office 2007 falls in the "why?" category. Again the acceptance has not been what MSFT dreamed of. There was little need to upgrade from any version of MS Office to Office 2007. Plus there is new competition in that arena too.
Though you do serve as a timely reminder of why Mr Gates became so rich. By brainwashing 'tards.
also I live in his neighborhoods- nearby- amazing such a person i keep bumping into wherever i go- move to. I did not know - he is amazing- cant imagine that kind of income- or life either- He was given a gift and Im sure compassion came knocking on his head- gives to the poor. Great person to do this and we would be proud he is an american with this intellegence.
Then Microsoft came around and brought an OS that allowed open development, allowed for an open hardware architecture.
It seamed only yesterday we cheered him on. Over the years we saw more and more people enter the industry.
Yes there where bad times with the good times. Hind sight is always 20 - 20.
But I say thank you.
Today is a much different playing field then 25 years ago.
I have seen how ridiculously slow Java is while running as a Desktop application, how ugly it looks and so on. Java has its strengths and MS tools have its own.
I am not sure how and from where these other vendors think they have a high ground over MS. They are equally greedy, and it is a requirement in a capitalist economy anyway.
I think MS is good and all this vilifying of MS is just sour grapes syndrome.
They absolutely are. Ever heard of the goofy software patent system in the U.S., where you can use patents of obvious ideas to block competition?
Linux is cheaper and better in a lot of ways. Many businesses and governments in Europe are switching. Personally, I only use windows because that is what my clients use. This is why Windows dominates. No one could come up with any real alternative because of software patents and compatibility issues. It's not because it isn't technically feasible. I wonder if any of you Gates brown nosers really understand any of that, or maybe you just don't care. Who knows.
Gates is redeeming himself somewhat with his charities and I do give him credit for that.
- by fredtheviking June 24, 2008 11:06 AM PDT
- With all due respect, is it necessary to take pot shoots at Bill, on the news of his retire. Much of your critizique is based on the idea that some other company would have done better than Microsoft. Which is far-fetched, consider IBM and Apple. I doubt either of these companies would have been better. Apple not only lock you in to the software, but to the hardware as well. If Apple won, the market would have long be calling bloody murder (that's why they didn't win). IBM was monopolistic and paid for it later. Microsoft got away with it because OS could on a great deal of hardwar. Also Windows isn't that bad, it gets the job done.
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