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By this time next week you will almost certainly be fed up of hearing that Bill Gates is leaving Microsoft.
But you will forgive us, we hope, for marking his leaving in this column – after all, Computing has written more words than most about the world’s biggest software company since it was formed.
Clearly Gates’s departure to focus on his charitable foundation and his new description as the world’s greatest philanthropist is a significant milestone.
When he shuts his office door for the last time, the man who has arguably done more than any other person to help create the technology revolution will be a technologist no more.
So goodbye Bill, and thanks for all the bugs.
History will undoubtedly be kinder to the Microsoft founder than his critics have been, and regardless of what anyone may think of the company’s dominance, his contribution has been without parallel.
The real issue for IT managers, though, is not Gates’ past, but Microsoft’s future.
Nothing will change when the great man walks away from the day job in Redmond.
The empire he built will not come crashing down overnight. The research labs will not be short of new ideas. But there are more question marks over the direction of the company than ever before.
Most experts see a steady decline in the importance of Windows as we know it – an increasingly bloated operating system that drives ever-more energy-hungry computers. At some point there will have to be a fundamental rethink of its role.
MS Office, the great cash cow, similarly faces emerging competition from free rivals that may one day threaten its dominance of the desktop.
And Microsoft’s abortive attempt to buy Yahoo shows the company has still to determine its future shape as the world moves increasingly to the internet.
Nobody’s IT strategy will change because Bill Gates is no longer at Microsoft.
But future IT strategies are likely to take a very different approach to its products.
Tags: Software, Innovation, Strategy
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