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article imageDigital Journal TV: The Outlook For Microsoft as Bill Gates Prepares to Exit

Posted Jun 26, 2008 by  Chris Hogg in Business | 4 comments | 762 views
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Mini Documentary: Bill Gates, Then and Now

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He's an innovator, a visionary and just plain genius: Bill Gates has made perhaps the biggest contribution to humankind with his life's work. Now, Gates prepares to transition out of Microsoft, but he has another chance to revolutionize the world.

Digital Journal -- When Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975 with friend Paul Allen, nobody could have guessed the 20-year-old would change history. Gates ushered in the era of the personal computer and built a business around software when nobody thought it was possible.

Today, Gates and his company Microsoft are household names. The Harvard drop-out is known as a business magnate, a software visionary, a philanthropist and one of the richest men in the world.

But this week marks a big change for Gates: He's transitioning out of Microsoft to put more energy and time into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a charitable organization. On June 27, Gates moves from his day-to-day role at Microsoft but will stay on as the company's chairman.

The 52-year-old is the co-chair and strategic thinker of the foundation in his name. The organization employs more than 500 people worldwide and has billions of dollars invested in enhancing healthcare, reducing extreme poverty, giving children access to education and computers and fighting diseases like AIDS in more than 100 countries.

While Gates is not totally out of Microsoft, his life and the company are undergoing a major change as he transitions out of a daily role. Today's marketplace is dramatically different than the one that existed when Microsoft was founded, and with billions of dollars at his disposal Gates is faced with another opportunity to revolutionize the world.

In this mini documentary, Digital Journal TV goes inside the life of Bill Gates. We look back at the defining moments of his career, including setting up an international company in his early twenties; we hear from Gates' friends and colleagues about the triumphs and tribulations of building a software empire; we go inside his new role with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; and we look at the company's position in the industry today, and tomorrow.

This is your in-depth look at the man who changed all our lives and history forever, and he has another chance to do it all over again.

When all is said and done, what do you think of the outlook for Microsoft and Gates?
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  • avatar Posted Jun 26, 2008 by  Sykos Masters
    #1
    Great overview Chris.

    When all is said and done, what do you think of the outlook for Microsoft and Gates?


    I can only hope that Gates is able to bring not only his vast $$, but also his unique ingenuity and public face to the causes of his foundation. His drive to be involved in the cures for mankind's pandemics is laudable; I just hope that he doesn't take a back-seat as he did w/ MS (imo).

    The one, fairly substantial, quarrel I've had with the MS systems has been that since Win95, the solution to correcting bad code has been to write 'bandage' code to supplement it, rather than removing the b0rked code and writing it fresh. At the time, it was estimated that Win98 contained over 30% of garbage code that could have been removed had the engineers decided to rebuild it properly. I haven't kept up on industry estimates for XP and Vista, but I have little reason to believe that that mentality has changed.

    I am pleased to see that MS has embraced, in a limited fashion, open source programming though. I've been a Linux user for almost a decade now and am pleased that now I needn't worry about having to find an MS machine simply to write a document that I'd like to share with non-Linux users. With the increase in web-based apps, distance networking and group compilation, and server-side decision making, I can only hope that this trend of openness and cross-platform compatibility continues.
  • skeptikool Posted Jun 26, 2008 by  skeptikool
    #2
    Hope he goes into plug-in electric vehicles and battery development. Nah, he would give us too many system changes and interminable updating. Steve Jobs, perhaps? Maybe a great team though, with Bill helping.
  • avatar Posted Jun 26, 2008 by  Chris V. (cgull)
    #3
    Also Steve Jobs will be leaving soon, I don't know how both the companies will manage, the shares will really drop after they leave. It won't be the same.
  • avatar Posted Jun 27, 2008 by  Saikat Basu (Maverick)
    #4
    Great companies prosper with a great vision. With Bill Gates logging off, the driving vision would be difficult if not impossible to replicate. Microsoft as a company has been losing ground ever since the start of the net revolution. Bill started the software one but couldn't really predict the Internet dominance in today's world. As it is, Microsoft's position as a leading edge innovator has been usurped by companies like Google and Apple (to an extent).
    Microsoft's loss could be the world's gain as he sets up shop to fight it's problems with his foundation. His billions won't hurt either.

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