Thursday, June 15, 2006

Gates To Leave Day-To-Day Role At Microsoft

News of the day: Microsoft announced Thursday that chairman and co-founder Bill Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role at the company, effective July 2008, to spend more time working on his charitable foundation.

Having read a lot on Bill Gates' biography over the years, I am a little bit surprised by this step. He had been showing such a lot of drive and dedication for the software business for more than thirty years. The people who challenged him, Gary Kildall (DR), Mitch Kapor (Lotus), Ray Noorda (Novell), Jim Cannavino (IBM), Philippe Kahn (Borland), all of them kissed the dust sooner or later. I am not sure about Eric Schmidt and Google yet ;-) Anyway, and whether people like it or not, Gates is leaving the ring as undisputed champion.