Gates picks challenging year to leave Microsoft

Just as Microsoft's past year was characterized by launches, the next will be defined by a departure. Bill Gates is slated to end his day-to-day executive duties in Microsoft at the end of June and shift to full-time philanthropy. Here's Seattle Post-Intelligencer's annual look at what to watch at Microsoft in 2008.

By Todd Bishop, December 30, 2007

[wil4hire]

Ever..

same with the children/grand children..

Good Luck BILL!!!

Despite all the MS bullS. They may not do the best job.. But its the one damn near everyone in the world uses for their OS.

[socomnick]

Bill is a pretty good guy hes quitting his job and dedicating all his time to charity. That is a pretty noble cause Im thinking of opening a fake charity maybe he decides to donate some money.

[crazypuppet]

hes giving his kids each 200,000 and donating the rest

[darkside]

Really $hit?? why would he do that? I mean would make sure that my children and grandchildren are set for life. before donating the rest to charity. Isn't his son running the company now?

[Tarmgar]

He's hardly giving his kids money because he doesn't want them to just be given everything in life. He wants them to actually work for they're money. That's why he's only giving them like 0.015% of his money or something like that. He's smart enough to know that poor people need it more than rich snotty kids.

[n4gTurnsU_WickedGay]

i would be pissed. bill could at least set up some sort of billion dollar trust fund. fix it so that his kids can't touch the money until they make their first million(or whatever dollar amount bill wants to set).

[darkside]

i like your idea better (^_^)

[THX7168]

There are hundreds of thousands of people that need the money more than Bill's kids do. I'm sure if his kids can make it to 1 million they wouldn't need the "billion dollar trust fund."

[eagle21]

Is a genius. Always will be remembered. Good work, job well done. edit: my post is not game related, just giving his genius as founder of microsoft respect.

[darkside]

true that! Bill is a great guy, but he getting to tired of taking charge of thing and wants a long vacation well he's still young and have fun. I think.

[MK_Red]

Agreed and bubbles for you eagle21. Sure he made a lot of money and didn't do everything right but still, he did many good things for and he's indeed a genius.

[sak500]

Yes, agreed, but unlike Ken he dint mess up his project and was neither kicked out of the company.

[MaximusPrime]

the only thing i say well done to Bill Gates is developing Windows OS.

[Kakkoii]

I thought Bill Gates quit a few years ago?

I remember hearing that a long time ago... Guess he had decided to stay until now lol

[okcomputer]

Thats what I thought too, maybe he was semi-retired and is now leaving ms full time. Either way though he'll go down as one of the greatest american businessmen ever.

[Merovee]

He isn't directly running the company and has not for a while, but he was acting as a figurehead/spokesman for like the last few years.

[segasage]

didn't warren Buffet give all his money to his foundation , as if he didn't have enough.

Hey I'm no hater, people seem to forget the amounts of money this guys gives for charity. Ya know that "have lemons and make lemonade saying..well this guy ran with it..well he didn't exactly pick them lemons himself. business as usual.

[IntelligentAj]

Yeah that dude is my hero. I like Bill Gates but he's nowhere near Warren Buffet. $30 billion to the foundation. And he said why not donate it he's what's he gonna do with all that money when he's dead. True role model.

[Lord_Mike]

Yeah great guy! Hope he has a nice good and long retirement. (Im sure he would =P)

[jackdoe]

Vista was a complete failure which is what makes this year so challenging to MS.

-edit- Jeez, seriously, who can call Vista a success? Fvcking MS fanboys, didn't even realize they existed.

[Xbox is the BEST]

[Salvadore]

I wish him the very best.

[mintaro]

good luck to him

[The Karate Kid]

How can you call yourself a gamer and make such a ridiculous statement about the playstation 3? Dark Sniper is 100% Correct on his comments and you XBOTS are in denial. The 360 is a sinking ship! I own one and i can you its a sinking ship thats why Its getting traded in to my local Game Crazy or Game Stop next week.

ITS OVER FOR 360 IN 2008.......................... ..........!

The Crane Kick will happen in 08'

[sak500]

I guess the old man riding you forgot to tell u not to open ur mouth for anything other then his (ock

[godofthunder10]

i know people keep calling me names because i post a long article.i wouldn't have to if people wouldn't keep taken all my bubbles away, just because i said that the 360 and ps3 are both good systems and they will never go away and instead of critizing one system they neen to start talking about games because the system that you don't have don't concern you,but i want to reply to more then 1 post and this is the only way that i know how now.
good luck bill and you are a great american because you and buffet are the only people in the world that will donate all of their money to charity when they die,now that shows how much a man cares about people and the world.
you better stop beliving and saying every thing that sony tells you to,hell if you knew anything about what's going on instead of lieing about the 360 just to make the ps3 look better.the truth is that the 360 turned a profit this year unlike the ps3 wich didn't,as a matter of fact sony lost the biggest sum that they ever lost in history in their video game department this year.
unlike you i'm not bias or childish and say thing that's not true.as long as there is people that want to play video games they will have a 360 and ps3 if you like it or not.you are so bias that you don't even see the big picture,if the ps3 or 360 fails(they will not)then we all will lose because they would put less money into a game and it want be half as good as they are now because they know that people will have no choice but to buy the game because they have no competition.
ps3 fans are saying that the only reason that gates is retiring is because he don't want to face the problem next year.if they would've been reading the news instead of critizing him they would've known that he said he was going to do this years ago.
the person that said bill gates should build a social system that works - in the US instead of helping other countries out should be on his prisident ass instead of gates because the U.S social system would be in perfect shape if that dum ass that people have as president wouldn't have borried 100s of billions(he even lost billions of $s because congress can't find where it went to, but if they check his bank account they would find it)$s to start a war on lies like he did so he could get his hands on the oil and now he's saying that we can't get out because if we do iran and afaganastan would take the oil (instead of him) and we would be their forever because he's plaining to build U.S bases in iraqi.so instead of blaming,and saying that gates should help the U.S social system out with his money should say that about the president not an induvisial like gates.

[Voozi]

Ahh Billy Billy Billy, you had some funny moments during your time at Microsoft =P

Best of luck to him, glad to see/hear he's using his money for charity.

**Edit**

Aww .gifs dont animate when attached ;/

http://i14.tinypic.com/6srb...

[TheExecutive]

that animated gif has me rolling on the floor.

[Jrome]

Charity?.....WTF IS CHARITY GOOD FOR!? All this money being churned into charity...You think poverty would be over by now. All they do is take all the money and put 90% into their paychecks and the other 10% into the actual effort.
And if that's not what they do....THEN WHERE is the billions and billions ending up?

[IntelligentAj]

Do you know what the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is? I don't think so if your making comments like that. Read a Newspaper sometime or try to do some research before you spout your ignorance.

[LJWooly]

One of the major reasons these countries are in poverty is the state of their economies and governments. Most government officials in Africa are corrupt. The ones that aren't corrupt, either get corrupted by the rest, or get 'dealt with' by their fellow politicians.

Therefore, most of the money we send to build new houses and give people a fresh supply of water, ends up paying for some government official's son's allowance.

That's how it is, i'm afraid, and no one who CAN do anything about it actually bothers to DO anything about it. Shame.

[Salvadore]

Sweden and other countries send a lot money to Uganda, but most of that money disappears amongst the politicians and that's what pisses me off because this money is benefical both for the people and the economy.

[Ju]

Who is talking about Uganda ? It would be enough to use that money to build a social system that works - in the US.

[Anything but Cute]

I sense a good year for PS3 and a lot more red rings for XBOX 360, especially as we move foward to a downloading era. When you leave the XBOX 360 downloading for hours. That's when you're bound to red ring, sooner or later.

Eventually people could catch on and realize the 360 is a bust.

I'm also having trouble with XBOX live right now. It's off an on and it's taking to long to do things, it just shows that circle crap around an XBOX 360 figure like it's loading, but it's taking too long.

[chrno6]

One second u are a xbox fan, and another second you become a ps3 fan. You really scared me you know lighting.

[sak500]

If you owned a 360 you'd know that background downloading option lets u switch off ur 360 and it only uses minmal resources to keep the d/l happening.

Anyway in last few weeks i've clocked in on avg 7 hours a day of hardcore gaming on 360 due to available time i had. Mostly of cod4 sessions stretching the whole day on weekends with intermittent breaks for attending nature's call or food. Touchwood its going ok so far.

[BloodySinner]

Best of luck to you, Bill Gates.

[GITPWNED]

Bill goes off to freeze while awaiting his life extension technology in 200 years. Best of luck!

[kwicksandz]

I have been following his posts and just because he actually speaks out against a consoles flaws he is vilified for it.

i think he has every right to point out that the PS3 lacked good games in its first year, online service was second rate and the myriad of other flaws that it has experienced. If i dropped $1000 AU which was the insane launch price over here id be disappointed too.

Just like he can say that the 360 is unreliable,hell i own one and every single one of my early adopter friends has replaced it at least once. Lucky i waited till the falcon model came out i guess. And $200 for a hard drive is highway robbery. PS XBL should free

Just cause you call it as you see it doesn't make you a fanboy and neither console is perfect, both having glaring flaws that fanboys chooose to overlook. Sony and MS alike dont care about you they care about the almighty dollar. Fanboys cant seem to grasp that.

[Account deleted]

grudges aside fanboys,
we have to appreciate and honor every great man, and mr bill gates is one of them, a undeniable fact.
i have read some of comments, i will call some of them controversial
bill gates have created the windows operating system, that's a great deed we can argue that windows vista isn't succesful, but who can deny the supremacy of xp and it's a windows operating system, i see that some iterations of windows are just scapegoats to prepare for others, like the case with mellenium and xp, sometimes it takes more than one try or two to make it right, like in windows xp for example, the first iteration wasn't that good, sp1 not that great, but sp2 rules..
and now it is the similar case with the xbox, the first one they didn't get how to do the right software to sell the system, in the second system they focused on the software and released a pre-mature system, and i hope that they will get it right with their third iteration, anyhow they stated they are not expecting profitability out of the xbox until the fourth generation, and i respect them for that because they know their status and they are working on a way to improve things, hell they are doing good against the big guys like nintendo and sony, myself, i was tempted to get an xbox but i didn't because of the rrod alert, anyhow i strayed from the main subject, let's return to the crux of the matter
bill gates is a man that will be remembered by generations to come
but i wonder how microsoft will do without such a great man??? are those two years of preparation enough??
as always, one can speculate, but let's wait and see....

prone to game anytime anywhere

[aaquib5]

If you look at all their innovations and ideas they had in early 2000, and now that they've panned out they all were executed horribly and got whippings by competitors, especially nowadays.

Windows Vista - People downgrading, companies forcing to offer XP computers, Microsoft extending XP store shelf dates, and a bunch of insults from the Apple community make Windows Vista one of the most anticipated, but disappointing product launch of the decade.

XBOX - They never made a cent of profit on the original XBOX. 2 years later, and they are now earning money in their video games division. Sadly, that $1B used for warranty isn't helping them at all. The XBOX division is finally going somewhere, but so far has been nothing spectacular.

Zune - A decent attempt to overtake Apple failed by the fact that they did everything other companies did, and failed just like other companies did. They didn't offer consumers a reason to buy a Zune over iPod except a few minor features which were quickly overlooked by the iPods easy to use interface and massive brand appeal. 2nd they didn't build a brand and personality around Zune. Everytime you see white earbuds, you know its an iPod. But, you don't know when someone has a Zune just by looking at their ear. It's a small, but very effective thing. And lastly, they didn't go beyond what iPod offered. Zune 80 is comparable to iPod Classic, but then the storage junky will look at the 160gb classic, and the average consumer will be blown away by the iPod Touch. Why get a Zune?

So, finally, good luck to Bill and Microsoft. You guys need to bring back the innovative, hard working Microsoft and stop with the lazy and arrogant mindset.

[Tyrael]

They'll live.

[bootsielon]

Hardly a smart creator, developer or inventor though. Most of what he did was bought, remade, or done by a team of developers other than him (Xbox). Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, John Carmack (to name a developer among dozens of), Sergei Bryn... they're all better than him. Intelligence is not measured by money, BTW.

Anyway, I used to want to be like this guy when I was young and Windows 95 had hit the stride, until I realized he wasn't really all that. In fact, he's a greedy mofo that only cared about his wealth, and not the consumer. All his donated wealth was either just with the purpose of deducting taxes, or because he doesn't really know what to do with all his money.

I would consider him a philantropist if he actually became a struggling middle class man after giving most of what he has, but he's still stinking rich. Hardly a philantropist. Hell, he never even cared for his clients and consumers in general, why would he care for someone else? Had it not been for him, the HD war would have never taken place.

Anyway, I hope this is good news for Microsoft, that this means a change in their philosophy, that their R&D (Research and Development) department is not the same as their M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions), and that they somehow realize that business have a job in the world other than making money, which is serving a human purpose, namely bring quality products to the market, i.e. business ethics.

BTW, I can't wait for another one of Zhuk's stupid comments. What will he say now? That Bill Gates is "undoubtedly" the man of the millenium? lol

[jaja1434]

Yes, a man who donates something like 4/5 of his total life income should by all accounts be considered greedy. I'd call you stupid or some other silly retort but I think it all just boils down to jealousy.

[xboxrumble]

jealousy is a motherucker.....I'm sure youd say something different if it was a sony exec.

[actas123]

I think lots of people who commented on this topic haven't actually read thee article. Bill gates is not quiting, he is going to stay chairman and stay responsible for some parts of the company, I guess OS department is one of them.. He will transfer many of the duties to others..

[Rice]

One of the greatest men alive.

[Matpan]

While I won´t jump into the "he will donate 99.8% of his fortune and only give two bucks to his kids" hype (let´s face it, he is one of the richest men alive. First, he will continue to make money, and so will his sons, and his grandsons, and generations to come, because of icenses, and copyrights and because he is a major share holder in many software and hardware companies, and his sons will inherit those shares, and the properties, and the money) I do believe he is a great man, not only for what he has achieved, but also because of the life he chooses to live from now on.

If only he does half as good as he did in the software business with philanthropy... It would be GREAT for all human kind.

Following generations will read about this man in history books, that´s for sure :)

[cloud360-7th_account]

What gay boy all i said that Kutaragi and Bill are genusises.

Why do i get 3 disagrees and SPAM

What piece of dog craps

[Bleucrunch]

I guess he feels he has accomplished everything he wants to do in the business world and he will take his well deserved vacation. Good for you bill.

[liquidsnake]

Don't forget Paul Allen, without him MS would have been nothing.

[sleepbox]

Here's to the coming apocalypse...cheers!

[Sevir04]

changed the way people think and work. we would have probably never had destops and laptop computers with such an accessible Os like windows... all the video game hate of consoles and fankid shinanigans aside. bill gates a Job well done. just make sure you you help build a few churches.

[Sevir04]

double post