Bill Gates Announces Retirement Plans
Posted by Yardena Arar | Thursday, June 15, 2006 2:21 PM PT
It's official--I heard it over a very poor quality teleconference hookup. In 2008, Bill Gates will retire from his day job as chief software architect of Microsoft, the company he founded more than three decades ago.
Gates said he is leaving gradually in order to smooth the transition of his duties to the two men who will assume them--chief technical officers Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie, who have been named chief software architect and chief research and strategy officer, respectively, effective immediately.
"Except for a little vacation this summer that's longer than normal, I'll be working as hard as I ever have over the next two years," Gates told a news conference at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
However Gates will likely be spending less time at the company, especially after Ozzie and Mundie begin reporting to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer next year.
Gates emphasized that he has no plans to ever give up his position as chairman of Microsoft's board of directors. "I don't see a time in the future when I won't be chairman of this company," he said. "I see myself as always being the largest shareholder in Microsoft. Steve is the second largest, and I think we both take a lot of pride in that."
Gates said he plans to devote more and more time to his role as chairman of the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which he says "will have grown" significantly. The foundation is devoted to promoting innovation in global health and education.
Gates admitted he has no real sense of what it will be like to leave Microsoft after so many years. "I don't know what it will feel like not to come in here every day and work for 10 hours," he said. "It's a little bit of an unknown there." But he has two years to prepare, he added, so "I'll see what that's like when I get there."
Even as he announced his retirement plans, Gates sounded as enthusiastic about Microsoft's future as he has since he became an international icon for the age of personal computing. "The shape of computing and how software will change entertainment and business--we really are just at the beginning of that," he said.
I think Gates has finally seen the writing on the wall, and relaizes that it will be more and more dificult to conduct business as usual when going up against Linux and OpenOffice.org.
I don't believe that at all, and I think very few people would accept that. I think he simply wants to focus more on his and his wife's foundation that's devoted to to promoting innovation in health and education.
Whatever happens at or with Microsoft will undoutedly still affect him, since it is the company he helped start and has of course made him rich, but I don't see him running from the significant, but still very tiny, competition presented by Linux and OpenOffice.
I don't have a ton of appreciation for Microsoft as a company, but I have always rather admired what Gates managed to accomplish. I wish him the best, but I still feel Microsoft needs to get its act together in a few areas.
I got a snake, man
Good luck, Bill~
Man, I wish he would have hired me to to take over his place.
I think Gates has finally seen the writing on the wall, and relaizes that it will be more and more dificult to conduct business as usual when going up against Linux and OpenOffice.org.
I am thinking that it would be a great thing to work for such a man I know nothing of computers but education and innovation is always a limitless area.. he may just be bored... the economy is going to turn and his decision will make sense in the coming years...
I am thinking all of your bases are belonging to us -- and are Vista-FRIENDLY!!! --- WOO HOO!!!
It will be really difficult to replace Bill Gates but it is for the progress and development of any organization that changes are required. It is the law of nature. Let us all wish Bill the very best for all his activities and endevours.
Good Luck Bill
I'm an expatriate living in a poor country where that type of Foundation can make a lot of difference in the life and health of many people. If Bill Gates put as much effort in that Foundation that he did in Microsoft that retirement may be a good thing
don't believe that at all, and I think very few people would accept that. I think he simply wants to focus more on his and his wife's foundation that's devoted to to promoting innovation in health and education.
Whatever happens at or with Microsoft will undoutedly still affect him, since it is the company he helped start and has of course made him rich, but I don't see him running from the significant, but still very tiny, competition presented by Linux and OpenOffice.
I don't have a ton of appreciation for Microsoft as a company, but I have always rather admired what Gates managed to accomplish. I wish him the best, but I still feel Microsoft needs to get its act together in a few areas.
It will be really difficult to replace Bill Gates and I have always admired what Gates managed to accomplish. I wish him and his wife's all the best and good luck.
well I allways have admired him. He is truly a ICON he created the PC that we use to day...and thats a lot of PCs linux sucks i love microsoft they are the best.. Mac is too slow... I love Microsoft and Bill gates!!
I like Linux and I think the open source software ?movement? plays an important role in the computing/software world. But what I don?t understand about ?Linux geeks? is their irrational hate of Bill Gates and Microsoft.
I am not talking about people who actually write software for Linux. I am talking about those people who download a Linux distribution using their parent?s Internet access, install it and then make up wallpapers of Bill Gates dressed up like a Borg from Star Trek. What contribution are they adding to open source? Maybe when they grow up and have to pay their own bills they will learn that making money by doing something you are good at isn?t wrong.
Regardless of what people think of Microsoft or Bill Gates, you have made a difference in the pc world. Wishing you the best of luck in the future Mr. Gates & Microsoft's future.
Linux, Is the best OS to take over the market, but it will taker decades for it ever to overtake Microsoft. Look at the strength microsoft has. It controls almost all of the OS and Sever Buisness.. Tell me that isn't something? We all Know Linux is > Microsoft, but the fact is Linux is divided, with no real owner... You cant support a company like that in the buisness world. What has made microsoft so popular? It's Stock and value is 1 and Linux doesnt have that. There are to many bits and pieces of open sorce out there. Lets be realistic unless Linux becomes a company different then its origional purpose, it has no chance to over power Microsoft. No matter how good There OS Gets.
Google, not Linux
At the moment it is qite clear that Linux dosn't pose much, if any threat to Microsoft. In the time being it seemes that Google poses much more of a threat to microsoft for the future as was stated by Ray Ozzie in a report to fello Microsoft workers. Google has relized that the future is in free internet ware funded by advertizing - a relm in which it surpasses Microsoft by far, economicaly as well as technicaly.
I never believed that Mr. Gates was very street or worldly wise. Even years before he created Microsoft, I and a good friend knew that we had the same idea that Gates finally realised. I chose to reject it because money is worthless to my life when compared to music and art. I simply did not want to give up music and art to create/form/build a software company that would have become Microsoft only before Microsoft was even thought of. In the succeeding years, like the rest of the world, have come to hate Microsoft and everything it stands for. Some of the mud was smeared on Mr. Gates himself. I tried to take a more charitable opinion of Gates. In the end, I must commend and praise him for his attention to charity and the forming of his charity with his wife and partner, Milinda. Even though is colleagues and friends and probably wives and girlfriends have ragged and bugged him about it and probably are the real reason he has a charity at all(!), he is nonetheless to be praised and thanked for doing whatever he can do for the world via his charity. Certainly the US government has done f*****l for AIDs or the 3rd World. This one man has done and is doing more than all the world's governments put together! Unlike his much more wealthy predecessor, Rockefeller, who only gave $400 million to his Foundation ($00.05 to you and me! compared to his $168 odd billion in 1911 when the $ meant something!)...Mr Gates seems to be devoting half of his fortune to charity and claims to make it 3/4 of his wealth. That alone will make Bill Gates reputation as a good human being for future history books in a time of extremely bad human beings. Think about it. The USA which is by definition a nation in decline, has a citizen in it's midst who will be credited for giving the most money to charity in the history of the world! He might even be credited with a cure for AIDS if nothing else!
Bill Gates is to be commended for what he has accomplish in the computer world.
He is also to be commended for what he is doing for charity and the forming of his charity with his wife and partner, Milinda.
I have always admired what Bill Gates managed to accomplish. I wish him the best, but I still feel Microsoft needs to get its act together in a few areas.
Whatever you think of Bill Gates, he has single handedly revolutionise IT and made the world a frightening more efficient place to live in.
Most productivity has increased dramatically due to the introduction of personal computers.
Now that he is making a major change in his life by devoting more of his time to charitable work, is indeed supremely commendable. He has donated more than $10 billion dollars to charith and much more to come if microsoft continues to be profitable. On that alone I hopre Microsoft flourish, so that more charities can be performed.
Best of luck to Bill and Melinda and I hope their money eventually found acure for AIDS and that he will make that medication cheaply available.
First of all don't hate Bill Gates! Just because he believed in his dreams and made things happen. You people could have done the same thing! Second without him where would the world be today? As far as Linux give it up you will never even come close to the big bad giant Microsoft!!! Thanks Bill you've done a great job! You're the man!
I am concerned .. My family work for Microsoft ... now he seems to want to save the people that will put a continual impact on the eco-system ... better he and Buffet focus on global warming ... any one agree?
The point is ... They can also use their money to help the all of us that are swamped by the force of their technology ... I love Bill and Melinda and Warren .. but hope they not forget the got all that money from us!
... re-write ..they got all their money from us
he is making a major change in his life by devoting more of his time to charitable work, is indeed supremely commendable. He has donated more than $10 billion dollars to charitable orginizations but why not us who buy and use the software? And fund his company .... and much more to come if microsoft continues to be profitable? On that alone I hope Microsoft will not forget those of us who made Bill a point of reverance, so that more charities can be performed for the people that made him so rich.
The point is Bill & Melinda and Warren They forget us from my point of view .... and unless we mention that they will continus to direct our money to other countrys for software updatea ... why not give all windows users a new update for free with a small contribution ...
Sorry, I am an idiot ... My hat is off to Bill and Warren ... I respect them both because the both have shown each of us how to make money and later to share that money ... I am humbled by the proposition presented by the teem of Gates & Warren and hope a nexus will result in USA citizens and worldly concerns benefit from this great contribution. Do you Agree? You have to tell them, you know?
Life is about evolution, on all levels. This man has helped the evolution of humanity as a whole with his technological work. It is only natural that he himself has evolved on a personal level. He is a wise man to recognize this and I wish him well as he has made a difference for the better to many.
Leonardo Da Vinci made Monalisa.Eventhough lot of new paints, new brushes,new canvases,new technoligies,new artists have come nobody has painted such a painting which still intrigues the art world.Still there are new stories coming about it.Lot of people make a living out of it.Bill Gates made Windows. Lot of people are making a living out of it.Eventhough new linux, new open.org, new this,new that,new softwares come "WINDOWS IS TO STAY FOREVER LIKE MONALISA".So THANKS AND BEST WISHES TO MR.BILLGATES & MRS.MELINDA BILLGATES from all the people who use windows and from whoever have used windows even once and even from those who write linux and other softwares using windows.
I know it is a greate thing by the greate people.No one can reject income and some one give meaning to that.i think these line enough to all.I am in pray and urging Jesus plz give good health,power to BILGATES,MELINDA,WARREN to serve people in need.I am waiting for them here in INDIA to serve poor people.
The great visionaries donot think of today they think of coming generations.Their vision and determination to help the poor,
under nourished and needy in underdevolping and developing nations across the globe . Mr Gates abd Warren have changed the meaning of wealth and its goals thereof .Their philosophy of work and life is worth emulating to billions of peoples across the globe.May Almighty bless these extraordinary
philanthropists withgreat health ang longlife.