- Apr 13, 2013
- 3,149
Even as Bill Gates weighs giving up his title of chairman of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), he’s poised to remain involved at the company he co-founded in an area of its deepest need: crafting must-have products.
As the board prepares to appoint Satya Nadella as Microsoft’s next chief executive officer, it’s considering replacing Gates as board chairman, people with knowledge of the matter have said. Gates would remain a director and be involved in product development, focusing less on administration, the people said. He’s weighing going to work at Microsoft at least one day a week, a person briefed on the matter said.
Gates championed Nadella’s candidacy during the months-long CEO search, a person briefed on the matter said, suggesting that the two will be able to collaborate well. Nadella is an insider who’s well-versed in Microsoft’s tools for businesses, while Gates was instrumental in building innovative products that ushered in the personal computing age.
Even so, the company under his chairmanship has struggled to replicate those early successes in new areas, including mobile devices and Internet services, falling behind Google Inc. (GOOG), Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Facebook Inc. (FB) in making things people want to buy.
“Bill’s product reviews were legendary, and Microsoft’s products would benefit from his input,” said Todd Warren, a 22-year Microsoft executive who left in 2009. “My concern would be that the tech landscape has shifted away from the PC in recent years.
Whatever role he takes, Gates’s resignation from the post he’s held for 33 years will be a watershed moment. He and fellow founder Paul Allen set the software standard for personal computing in 1981 when they persuaded International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) to use their fledgling operating system inside the company’s new personal computer. Microsoft went on to become the most valuable corporation, helping make Gates the world’s richest man.
Gates’s high standards and attention to detail place him alongside Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in the pantheon of technology visionaries, said Geoffrey Moore, author of “Crossing the Chasm.” The executive will have a positive impact on products, Moore said.
“The more time Bill spends on product development, the better,” said Moore, whose book chronicled the challenges of marketing technology products to a widening market. “He and Steve Jobs seem very different on the outside, but at their core they were very similar. They both see things that others don’t see, and they’re both very demanding.”
“This is them realizing that they are in a battle to the death in technology and, by the way, Google is ahead,” said Moore, whose Chasm Group is based in San Bruno, California. Gates could make a difference in creating new software, hardware or services even if he’s on the Redmond, Washington, campus just a few days a week, he said.
Gates’s greater involvement in technology strategy at the company may have prompted some outside candidates to take themselves out of the running because of concerns they’d be second-guessed, according to Bill George, a Harvard Business School professor who’s a director at Exxon Mobil Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.“It’s very significant that Gates may play a role in product development, and could explain why some outside candidates turned the CEO job down,” George said.
Gates is a brilliant strategist who spearheaded the creation of monopolies with the Windows operating system and Office productivity application suite. It was under his watch that Microsoft began to develop smartphones and tablets long before Apple considered them, only to fail to deliver. Apple’s iPod was released in 2001, and the iPhone in 2007, when Gates was chief software architect at Microsoft.
Gates took that title after leaving the CEO post in 2000, and in 2008 he stepped away from daily operations to focus on his philanthropic work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
As the board prepares to appoint Satya Nadella as Microsoft’s next chief executive officer, it’s considering replacing Gates as board chairman, people with knowledge of the matter have said. Gates would remain a director and be involved in product development, focusing less on administration, the people said. He’s weighing going to work at Microsoft at least one day a week, a person briefed on the matter said.
Gates championed Nadella’s candidacy during the months-long CEO search, a person briefed on the matter said, suggesting that the two will be able to collaborate well. Nadella is an insider who’s well-versed in Microsoft’s tools for businesses, while Gates was instrumental in building innovative products that ushered in the personal computing age.
Even so, the company under his chairmanship has struggled to replicate those early successes in new areas, including mobile devices and Internet services, falling behind Google Inc. (GOOG), Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Facebook Inc. (FB) in making things people want to buy.
“Bill’s product reviews were legendary, and Microsoft’s products would benefit from his input,” said Todd Warren, a 22-year Microsoft executive who left in 2009. “My concern would be that the tech landscape has shifted away from the PC in recent years.
Whatever role he takes, Gates’s resignation from the post he’s held for 33 years will be a watershed moment. He and fellow founder Paul Allen set the software standard for personal computing in 1981 when they persuaded International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) to use their fledgling operating system inside the company’s new personal computer. Microsoft went on to become the most valuable corporation, helping make Gates the world’s richest man.
Gates’s high standards and attention to detail place him alongside Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in the pantheon of technology visionaries, said Geoffrey Moore, author of “Crossing the Chasm.” The executive will have a positive impact on products, Moore said.
“The more time Bill spends on product development, the better,” said Moore, whose book chronicled the challenges of marketing technology products to a widening market. “He and Steve Jobs seem very different on the outside, but at their core they were very similar. They both see things that others don’t see, and they’re both very demanding.”
“This is them realizing that they are in a battle to the death in technology and, by the way, Google is ahead,” said Moore, whose Chasm Group is based in San Bruno, California. Gates could make a difference in creating new software, hardware or services even if he’s on the Redmond, Washington, campus just a few days a week, he said.
Gates’s greater involvement in technology strategy at the company may have prompted some outside candidates to take themselves out of the running because of concerns they’d be second-guessed, according to Bill George, a Harvard Business School professor who’s a director at Exxon Mobil Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.“It’s very significant that Gates may play a role in product development, and could explain why some outside candidates turned the CEO job down,” George said.
Gates is a brilliant strategist who spearheaded the creation of monopolies with the Windows operating system and Office productivity application suite. It was under his watch that Microsoft began to develop smartphones and tablets long before Apple considered them, only to fail to deliver. Apple’s iPod was released in 2001, and the iPhone in 2007, when Gates was chief software architect at Microsoft.
Gates took that title after leaving the CEO post in 2000, and in 2008 he stepped away from daily operations to focus on his philanthropic work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
