Bill Gates leaves an enormous legacy but an uncertain future

As Bill Gates leaves full-time work as chairman of Microsoft today, he can look back on one of the most extraordinary careers in the annals of business -- a rise from college dropout to world's wealthiest individual. Along the way, his forceful execution fulfilled the audacious goal of putting a computer in nearly every home, at least in the U.S.

But the company Gates leaves behind is, at long last, floundering. Its stock price is where it was six years ago. Microsoft has just bungled an attempt to buy Yahoo in what would have been the largest acquisition in Silicon Valley history. And the attention of the technology world, once riveted on the Redmond, Wash., company, has turned elsewhere, to Google and beyond.

Perhaps most surprising, Microsoft appears to be losing ground on the one product that it rode to world dominance: the operating system powering 9 in 10 personal computers.

By coincidence, today also marks the last day of general availability of Windows XP, the operating system that Microsoft finally got right. Its successor, Windows Vista, is so unworthy that even Microsoft's closest partner, top chip maker Intel, is refusing to distribute it to employees.

What do you think? If Gates went wrong, where? Will Microsoft ever command the technology industry again?

-- Joseph Menn

Photo: Bill Gates in 1990. Credit: Marty Lederhandler / Associated Press

Comments

[Pete Velasquez]

Software and content are getting cheaper and cheaper. Piracy is an uncontrollable beast. Profitability in web advertising has reached its max. We will, however, always need new and more powerful boxes and the OS to run it.
Things will always be bright for MS.

[jeff]

bill gates mad no mistakes, he is a man every man should stride to be more like.

[Kevin Belanger]

Could you please expand on how the unsolicited bid was bungled? I thought it was rejected and MS eventually backed off. Would you have been happier with a drawn-out proxy battle? Don't get me wrong, Redmond messes up plenty (Win pre-4.0, MS Bob, Win Me, etc.), but your comments in this instance seemingly lump you in with M$ bashers. Care to respond with comments that back up your seeming hyperbole? If I missed bungling I'm certainly open to hearing it, but a URL to a posting that simply says the MS board was considering how to respond to Yahoo!'s rejection of their proposition doesn't cut it.

[travis]

Gates is getting out at the right time... Microsoft is a dying a slow death. Apple and Linux are gaining marketshare every day.

[Hen]

Gates presided over a monopolistic and predatory company.
He stifled competition, innovation and customer focus.

Micro Soft's only mistake has been Vista.

[Bob Mims]

Think you mean "foundering," instead of "floundering" . . .
unless you are implying Gates and/or Microsoft are a kind of table fish.

[DAG]

He was a carnivorous thief. Stealing code (see the Apple vs Microsoft lawsuit where MS admitted to lifting code from the Mac OS), to collusion, anti-competitive business practices and more made him filthy rich. He also was the recipient of a huge subsidy from IBM in the early PC days. Without the appointment of George W Bush and his DoJ, Microsoft would have been broken up as a result of the lawsuit launched under the Clinton Administration. So much for being a genius.

I contend that if it were not for Bill Gates and Microsoft, most of us would be using computers that are more secure, stable and powerful. Windows is a train-wreck and is living proof that selling the most does not imply that something is the best-of breed.

The only nice thing I can say about Bill Gates is that his giving the bulk of his fortune away is that it may, in part, offset the financial damage he has wrought on his many competitors and victims harmed through his and his company's business practices.

[Michael]

Gates led the most ethically-challenged company in the U.S. If Microsoft had been in the power business instead of the software business, he'd be on the way to a federal prison, not retirement.

[Charles]

Microsoft needs to copy apple, again (and there's nothing wrong with copying, have someone else to the R&D for you, cheap :D). At some point apple just admitted they had to just throw off the dead weight of OS 8 and 9 and they came along with X, fresh and new and they've been riding that for years. Microsoft did that with NT, 2000 and effectively with XP which were all great successes.

Sure it'd be a hard transition initially but I'm sure if they deployed it properly they'd have a smooth, streamlined, secure, efficient operating system without staggering system requirements. All in all though I don't think they've really made any major mistakes, they've become an incredibly large company, and it's hard to revolutionize when you're that size.

[Elizabeth]

Everyone should read the book, "Hard Drive," which is about how Microsoft really was founded. Usually, you will find it in your local library. It was written years ago by a journalist who did not particularly like Bill Gates and decided to find out the "facts" before judging him.

It starts with a bit of childhood biography, then into his college days and most important, the day Bill G was invited to IBM. You will learn how stodgy IBM was at that time, and way off base in the marketing forecast for personal computers.
Bill's tenancious spirit has taken us into a whole new realm of powerful software tools for personal and office productivity and at a reasonable price...please give MS credit!! MAC couldn't and wouldn't do it. Remember when a Mac computer cost $10,000 and had no ofice productivity software? Mac's arrogance sent them in a downward spiral for years...but I do give them credit for reinventing themselves.

Before you blast Bill Gates, you owe it to yourself to read this book; especially the part about how he acquired the rights to the original operating system.

[Marty Weiss]

To Bob Mims: "Flounder" is also a verb that means " to proceed or act clumsily or ineffectually" Blessings In Yeshua (Jesus)!

[larry]

Dear Bill Gates,
I will always remember you everytime I reboot my computer.

-Larry-

[MaxLA]

I've been selling computers my whole life. I have the very first laptop, made by NEC, sitting in my closet, made back in 1989. I also have an Altair and remember Commodore 64s. This is a sad day and even more evidence of my aging!

When foreign companies do what MS did, nobody says a word. When US companies do it, the DOJ and everyone else is all over their hyde. I say good for him, better an American company dominate than a foreign.

I had a friend that worked for MicroSoft in Redmond and visited the campus a few times. Has anyone that is bashing MS visited their campus, which is literally what it is? They give free meals to their employees, have teams and clubs that compete with UofW, they arrange singles happy hours, they help back up mortgages for employees with spotty credit, in the beginning they offered free health care.... I could go on and on, am amazing place to work and my friend loved it. Getting tired of haters blogging on here, get a life already!

[nakos]

Yes, BG was a smart businessman. But it is a sign of the times that he leaves when the company begins to decline. Viva Apple!

[AK]

I would have to say that 'floundering' is definitely the correct word. MS appears to have lost its way lately, but it would be quite a stretch of the imagination to say that it has 'failed utterly'.

from dictionary.com:
"Usage Note: The verbs founder and flounder are often confused. Founder comes from a Latin word meaning "bottom" (as in foundation) and originally referred to knocking enemies down; it is now also used to mean "to fail utterly, collapse." Flounder means "to move clumsily, thrash about," and hence "to proceed in confusion." In other words - If John is foundering in Chemistry 1, he had better drop the course; if he is floundering, he may yet pull through."

[Anon]

Bill Gates didnt give the majority of his fortune away. Warren Buffet gave a majority of his fortune to the Gates foundaton managed by Melinda up until now to be used over the years to help the world.

So to me that invalidates all of your other comments, as since you didnt know that, you may not really knowa ll that other stuff that you said.

[airplay]

To maxla: just remember who's paying for those free meals-- we are, the people who are often compelled to use MS products.

[Jim Craft]

I have to laugh at the people predicting that Apple and Linux will take significant market share from MS. Both of these systems are primarily for people who use computers as hobbies. Real users use MS-based computers because of the range of applications available.

Most of the carping is motivated by envy. Apple (Steve Jobs) messed up their opportunity to grab market share back when they refused to promote clones and the development of applications. MS made all the smart moves, and Apple promoters can't stand to admit that Apple was outflanked. This wasn't cheating--it was Apple ineptness.

As far as Bill Gates goes: He was a brilliant businessman and now that he is loaded he is one of the most generous people in the world. Give him all the credit he deserves. I hope he has a great retirement.

[Anon]

I have to agree with Elizabeth that MAC is greedy.

I almost bought a MAC Leopard OS recently but the tiniest monitored one was over $1000 !! ($1100-1400 for something decent)

For just under $1000 I got a 2 GB, 160gb hard drive HP Compaq laptop with Vista (no big deal because I have been supporting vista for over a year and made the few necessary tweaks to avoid any issues, and my wife has had no problems with it since-even the new mail works fine, and I tweaked out IE7 with www.ie7pro.com s add on)

Included in that price was a brand new antena free wireless linksys router, chill pad, wireless targus optical mouse, numbers key pad, laptop bag and a stack of DVD-RWs

Did I mention the nice laptop bag and Office 2007 -word, excel and powerpoint?

Since Elizabeth is so astute, she must be hot!

[Steve Phillips]

To Bob Mims, "floundering" is correct English according to my Webster's. It is a synonym for "foundering" and has the same meaning. It's generally a good idea to consult your dictionary before you criticize someone's grammar.

Now onto my real comment. In 1981, IBM made an instantaneous transfer of momentum to Microsoft and Intel. IBM's market dominance made the PC an instant standard (and killed off all competitors such as CP/M), but by opting for an open hardware design and handing over the software rights to Microsoft, IBM gave away the store. The market flocked to the PC standard because IBM developed it, not because DOS was any better than its competitors.

Microsoft didn't have to be terribly talented to ride this wave; they just needed to play enough defense to stay in the game. Windows was an adequate response to the original Macintosh OS, and that's all Microsoft ever needed from a technical perspective: to be adequate. The market momentum of the PC standard did the rest.

Of course, Microsoft's brutally competitive (or anti-competitive) nature played a role here in killing off any threats to the Windows and Office products, and you have to give them credit for the way they fleeced IBM in the first place, but basically I think they just happened to be in the right place at the right time...

[commentary]

He's sure came a long way in the wardrobe department since this picture.

What billions of dollars can do!

[AJ]

Well, it’s not fare to say Mr. Gates is leaving MS with an uncertain future. He did a spectacular job during his tenure with MS and now he believes that there is somebody who can take MS to the next heights.

Linux or MAC has never been a threat to MS Windows atleast in the desktop segment. I have seen people going to MAC side for sometime, they roam around and they comeback to Windows since they can't get much software, games etc in the MAC & Linux world. And there isn't much support available in the Linux world except some forums and posts. These facts remain the same till date.

Vista is not a failure. It's just that people need some time to adopt a new technology which they are not use to. Initially XP had the same reviews but as people got use to it, it became a huge success for Microsoft.

If we talk about server systems, Windows Servers have outperformed in every department in terms of security, reliability etc. MS Exchange and Active Directory are the biggest evidence to prove the same.

So instead of crying foul on something which is very far from the ground reality why not to give a big round of applause to Mr. Gates on his farewell.

[Rufus Leaking]

Everybody who worked on Vista and Office 2007 should be shot, strung up in the desert and left there to decompose.

[Harrison Parker]

Wish I were him !