Jun

27

Bill Gates to Sign Off at Microsoft Today

Filed Under Microsoft 

Billionaire Bill Gates’ retirement from Microsoft today will mark the end of an amazing era for the software giant, Microsoft.

It will also push current CEO Steve Ballmer, into the spotlight in what is proably the most challenging period in the Seattle based company’s history.

“Microsoft has to think about some radical changes within the organisation to not just fix the online business, but start innovating in some of the other ones,” said Sid Parakh, an analyst at McAdams Wright Ragen.

At a May 2008 gathering of chief executive officers at Microsoft’s headquarters, Gates outlined how he hoped to translate the work once done within the singular confines of his brain into the sort of group projects that could be managed with the company’s own collaboration software.

“We’ve created a thing we called quests, where we divided our types of customers down, and we got the best thinkers on these things, both the very practical people who are with the customers, the engineers who write the code, and the researchers who may be more unbound in terms of their timeframe and imagination, and put them together,” Gates said.

So What Now?

Microsoft said two years ago that Gates, who started the company with high school friend Paul Allen in 1975, would end his day-to-day role to spend more time on the charitable foundation he runs with his wife, Melinda French Gates.

Gates will remain chairman, coming in one day a week to work on projects with Craig Mundie and Ray Ozzie, who inherit his software strategy responsibilities.

“I don’t ever see Bill stepping 100 percent away from Microsoft,” said Scott Di Valerio, a former vice president who resigned in October. “He’s part of the core of Microsoft, and I think Microsoft is part of Bill’s overall core.”

So, what now for Microsoft? Clearly, the new team has to get a firm grip on the company’s web 2.0 aspirations if it’s going to remain relevant in the Google age.

Expect to see serious investment in cloud computing, and even the introduction of a free, browser-based version of Office that will compete directly with Google’s offering.

…new days ahead!

Regards

Marc Liron – Microsoft MVP

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