Microsoft Chief Steps Down Microsoft Boss Shows Himself the Gate
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced Thursday that he would step aside from his day-to-day active role in the software company he founded to concentrate on his charitable foundation. Starting in 2008, Gates will work full time for the Bill & Melinda Gates Charitable Foundation while retaining his position as Microsoft Chairman and technical advisor.
Although Gates spoke of a two year transitional period, changes will be felt immediately. Gates announced the appointment of chief technical officers Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie as chief software architect and chief research and strategy officer respectively.
Gates complained that "the world has focused a disproportionate amount of attention on me." Indeed, Steve Balmer replaced Gates as CEO six years ago. Yet, this remains a hugely significant announcement, coming at a time when Microsoft faces numerous challenges to its dominance of personal computing, particularly from the likes of Google.
Gates said he would not walk away from the company which he and Paul Allen founded in 1975. "I always see myself as being the largest shareholder in Microsoft," he said. Gates currently holds a 9.5% stake, worth around $22.5 billion.
The world's richest man plans to devote his time to charitable works. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a $29 billion endowment and concentrates its work on health, education and tackling poverty in underdeveloped countries. "With great wealth comes great responsibility, a responsibility to give back to society," Gates said. The foundation has already donated $10.5 billion to charitable causes including $1.1 billion towards fighting HIV/AIDS and $1.9 billion to anti-malaria programs.
Last year, Gates told the World Health Assembly, "Melinda (his wife) and I had assumed that if there were vaccines and treatments that could save lives, governments would be doing everything they could to get them to people who needed them, but they weren't."
Gates' announcement comes at a crucial juncture in the history of Microsoft. Though Gates insists the software giant has always had strong competitors, his decision to scale back his role comes as Microsoft stands accused of failing to keep pace with the challenges of the Internet revolution.
The company, which employs 63,000 people worldwide with annual sales of $40 billion, was founded with the ambition of placing "a computer on every desk and in every home." But increasingly Microsoft's business model -- which focuses on placing boxed software in personal computers -- is under attack by the potential of the Internet and networking. The advent of Web 2.0 -- super-fast broadband enabling content and software downloads on-demand -- has caught Microsoft off guard. The company has also experienced a series of embarrassing delays to its new operating system, Vista. Microsoft's share price has fallen over 60 percent since 2000.
