MSNBC: Bill Gates to Transition Away From Microsoft

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13348456/' target='_blank'>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13348456/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates announced Thursday that he will transition from day-to-day responsibilities at the company he co-founded to concentrate on the charitable work of the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates will continue on as the company’s chairman after transferring his duties over a two-year period. “This was a hard decision for me,” said Gates, who founded the world’s largest software company with childhood friend Paul Allen. “I’m very lucky to have two passions that I feel are so important and so challenging. As I prepare for this change, I firmly believe the road ahead for Microsoft is as bright as ever.”"</i><br /><br />Interesting, and not all-together surprising. Bill Gates has been focusing more and more on his charitable work, and after reading the Time magazine article about him earlier this year, I can see he has a real passion for it. I think it's great that someone with so much money wants to focus all his time on helping others - we need more people like that in this world.

[jlp]

...

Interesting, and not all-together unsurprising. Bill Gates has been focusing more and more on his charitable work, and after reading the Time magazine article about him earlier this year, I can see he has a real passion for it. I think it's great that someone with so much money wants to focus all his time on helping others - we need more people like that in this world.

(emphasis added)

"Not ... unsurprising" or rather "not surprising" :o; tell me I must learn right 8).

[Kris Kumar]

I was surprised that this year at Tech-Ed and MEDC, Gates didn't do the keynotes. That should have given us some ideas.

I always thought that Gates was the guy that held and manoeuvred the company. It will be interesting to see how the company does. I personally don't think Steve Ballmer has the kind off grasp on technology that Bill has. Hopefully Ray Ozzie will help him out on that aspect.

[Mike Temporale]

Well done Bill. It's great that he stayed and worked as long as he has. Microsoft has come a long way since the early years and it's all part of his vision. :)

I'm sure he's very aware of what the public is going to say about this. He'll be working hard to make sure that Microsoft can keep running and growing without him onboard.