Gates has left the building

Bill gates has announced that he will be withdrawing from his day to day activities as Chief Software Architect at Microsoft. This is supposed to happen as a gradual move, completing in 2008 and Ray Ozzie (creator of Lotus Notes and Groove) will be replacing Gates as Chief Software Architect.

While Gates will remain as Chairman of Microsoft he will no longer be involved in product design and development, moving off to concentrate on philanthropic work being done by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

What affect this move will have in the future of Microsoft and how its products evolve is uncertain, but I am certainly not alone in thinking that Microsoft will never be the same without Bill Gates. His participation in product design and architecture is still very strong to this day, 31 years after the company's creation.

Ray Ozzie, who will succeed Gates as Chief Software Architect is certainly nothing short of brilliant, as demonstrated by the Notes and Groove products he created, but will his influence maintain Microsoft in the path laid down by its founder or will it take the company into an entirely new direction?