Technology Zone

[0MFGimCUTE]

>.< I wish I was as rich as him and I could retire now lol Stupid people and their billions of dollars! He should share with everyone in the world because no person alone needs billions xD

[Mesiox]

We've been harping on Bill Gates and company ever since we learned how to add "M$" to our clever newsgroup diatribes, and he's been doing his geeky thing for much longer than that. But after more than 30 years at Microsoft, Bill Gates says he's going to quit his day-to-day Microsoft duties in 2008 in order to concentrate on the charitable work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He'll stick around as chairman, and we're sure we haven't seen the last of him in a broader sense, but he's not going to be doing any more software architectin', and probably won't have as much time for continuing his series of Engadget interviews. Don't worry Bill, we won't forget about you. We just hope those charitable efforts don't take you away from your true passion: reading Engadget daily like every good knighted billionaire ought.


A profound moment in Microsoft history passed last July with barely a media tremor: Bill Gates's de facto retirement from the company's day-to-day business and the formal elevation of Steve Ballmer to that operational role. The move, dismissed in most quarters as a no-brainer, was a clear acknowledgement of the problems Microsoft faces.


[Thanks, Matt and Oliver O.]

* Read


Engadget




James Wallace is a business writer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. His most recent book is Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race to Control Cyberspace.

Wired 6.12: Why Bill Gates Quit His Job

"This is a fundamental change in the company. It is more significant than anybody quite realizes," says Rob Enderle, a longtime Microsoft watcher with the Giga Information Group. "It was extremely timely. Microsoft is facing its greatest set of challenges since the mid-1980s, when Novell was actually a threat, and IBM was looking like they would become one."

Why did Gates relinquish control?

The official story: Last Christmas, Gates looked at his calendar for 1998 and saw that he was so involved in the nuts and bolts of running the company that he would be spending less than half his time on product development. And that simply wasn't acceptable. The unofficial take from inside and outside the company is more blunt: Not enough attention was being paid to product quality, and Gates was better equipped than anyone else to fix that.

Even though customers have long complained about Microsoft's products, analysts say customer satisfaction has never been as low. Some software, such as a recent service patch for Microsoft Office that was later called back, should never have made it off campus. Microsoft watcher Chris Le Tocq of Dataquest, putting it gently, says, "The hands had been off the wheel a little."

"He's going to drive the product managers nuts," says analyst Enderle. "But Bill can get programmers to agree to make changes that no one else can."

In addition to working on product development, Gates has told people within the company that he'll spend more time on long-range planning. The first concrete sign of this new focus emerged in September, when he produced a 10,000-word memo, "The Era Ahead," that, among other things, laid out plans for creating a system under which Net users could seamlessly and continually update their Microsoft wares, for making the company's Office suite a Web front end, and for getting into the business of becoming a central repository for user data through a new generation of "megaservers."

Redmondologists see Ballmer's role as critical, too, for making customers happy. He brings to his new job the experience of having led the sales staff. Says Le Tocq: "Steve will bring customer focus deep into the company." For instance, technical product managers will spend time with customers in the field - the classic sales approach.

"To some extent, there has been a failure on the part of Microsoft in responding to enterprise computing [the corporate market for which Windows NT was developed] with just technology," says Eric Brown of Forrester Research. Ballmer's promotion "represents a fundamental shift away from workgroup computing into not only enterprise computing but Internet computing, which requires a different sensitivity."

It will be a big part of Ballmer's job to make sure that Microsoft anticipates rapidly evolving technology. That, perhaps more than anything else - including the ongoing federal and state antitrust action and a spotty product track record - is the greatest threat facing Microsoft. The Internet-provoked shift to a new computing model, with centralized servers and applications run off the Web, could eclipse its Windows franchise. Despite Ballmer's reputation as a fulminator, some credit him with a style more likely to keep the company on track than Gates's "everything-I-know-is-right" approach to strategy.

"At a time when there is this fundamental shift in technology taking place, Bill was the ideal manager to take Microsoft down the toilet," says an industry analyst who prefers to remain anonymous when disparaging the company. "Steve, on the other hand, is much more willing to see what the situation is before making a decision."

Both "roles ahead" - Ballmer's and Gates's - are tailored to the pressures of the moment. Ballmer has to repair a souring relationship with customers; Gates must better vet the products on which those ties are built.

As Enderle puts it, "Bill is a great monarch but Steve is a much better manager." And the moment calls not for an emperor, but for a management virtuoso.


Peace,
*********

[GMG]

Ohh..... so he isn't quiting? Hes jsut going into product developing 0.o


Sounds good to me.. Microsoft needs to get their wheels back on track

[Hornstar6969]

Originally Posted by *********

We've been harping on Bill Gates and company ever since we learned how to add "M$" to our clever newsgroup diatribes, and he's been doing his geeky thing for much longer than that. But after more than 30 years at Microsoft, Bill Gates says he's going to quit his day-to-day Microsoft duties in 2008 in order to concentrate on the charitable work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He'll stick around as chairman, and we're sure we haven't seen the last of him in a broader sense, but he's not going to be doing any more software architectin', and probably won't have as much time for continuing his series of Engadget interviews. Don't worry Bill, we won't forget about you. We just hope those charitable efforts don't take you away from your true passion: reading Engadget daily like every good knighted billionaire ought.


A profound moment in Microsoft history passed last July with barely a media tremor: Bill Gates's de facto retirement from the company's day-to-day business and the formal elevation of Steve Ballmer to that operational role. The move, dismissed in most quarters as a no-brainer, was a clear acknowledgement of the problems Microsoft faces.

"This is a fundamental change in the company. It is more significant than anybody quite realizes," says Rob Enderle, a longtime Microsoft watcher with the Giga Information Group. "It was extremely timely. Microsoft is facing its greatest set of challenges since the mid-1980s, when Novell was actually a threat, and IBM was looking like they would become one."

Why did Gates relinquish control?

The official story: Last Christmas, Gates looked at his calendar for 1998 and saw that he was so involved in the nuts and bolts of running the company that he would be spending less than half his time on product development. And that simply wasn't acceptable. The unofficial take from inside and outside the company is more blunt: Not enough attention was being paid to product quality, and Gates was better equipped than anyone else to fix that.

Even though customers have long complained about Microsoft's products, analysts say customer satisfaction has never been as low. Some software, such as a recent service patch for Microsoft Office that was later called back, should never have made it off campus. Microsoft watcher Chris Le Tocq of Dataquest, putting it gently, says, "The hands had been off the wheel a little."

"He's going to drive the product managers nuts," says analyst Enderle. "But Bill can get programmers to agree to make changes that no one else can."

In addition to working on product development, Gates has told people within the company that he'll spend more time on long-range planning. The first concrete sign of this new focus emerged in September, when he produced a 10,000-word memo, "The Era Ahead," that, among other things, laid out plans for creating a system under which Net users could seamlessly and continually update their Microsoft wares, for making the company's Office suite a Web front end, and for getting into the business of becoming a central repository for user data through a new generation of "megaservers."

Redmondologists see Ballmer's role as critical, too, for making customers happy. He brings to his new job the experience of having led the sales staff. Says Le Tocq: "Steve will bring customer focus deep into the company." For instance, technical product managers will spend time with customers in the field - the classic sales approach.

"To some extent, there has been a failure on the part of Microsoft in responding to enterprise computing [the corporate market for which Windows NT was developed] with just technology," says Eric Brown of Forrester Research. Ballmer's promotion "represents a fundamental shift away from workgroup computing into not only enterprise computing but Internet computing, which requires a different sensitivity."

It will be a big part of Ballmer's job to make sure that Microsoft anticipates rapidly evolving technology. That, perhaps more than anything else - including the ongoing federal and state antitrust action and a spotty product track record - is the greatest threat facing Microsoft. The Internet-provoked shift to a new computing model, with centralized servers and applications run off the Web, could eclipse its Windows franchise. Despite Ballmer's reputation as a fulminator, some credit him with a style more likely to keep the company on track than Gates's "everything-I-know-is-right" approach to strategy.

"At a time when there is this fundamental shift in technology taking place, Bill was the ideal manager to take Microsoft down the toilet," says an industry analyst who prefers to remain anonymous when disparaging the company. "Steve, on the other hand, is much more willing to see what the situation is before making a decision."

Both "roles ahead" - Ballmer's and Gates's - are tailored to the pressures of the moment. Ballmer has to repair a souring relationship with customers; Gates must better vet the products on which those ties are built.

As Enderle puts it, "Bill is a great monarch but Steve is a much better manager." And the moment calls not for an emperor, but for a management virtuoso.


Peace,
*********

*cough*credits*cough*


Even if he retires, nothing much will change, he has people telling him what to do in reguards to business choices these days pretty much.

[kashin]

lol his son is gonna retire at the age of -not born-

[yam]

Good job on getting the information mark

[1r1sh]

Thats interesting I didn't think he'd be retiring any time soon.

[bouncer3266]

what are you *****s talking about, he has around 50-70 billion, you dont know how much that is, he can fight the war in iraq + have money for living a luxerious life, that is so much money, 10 generations is an understatement, he can fund a ****ing country, and anyone who even though he would be closing microsoft needs to kill themselves

[MadskillZ]

is he still going to own the company or is he getting rid of it altogether?

[nipz]

yea bill gates is a rich ass ****er that i wanna slap