Bill Gates

[BillySugger]

So Bill Gates has retired as CEO of Microsoft , is this likely to make there products better or worse?

[vehelpfulguy]

With company the size of Microsoft, and the number of products they have (it is in the hundreds if not thousands) I doubt if any CEO (even Bill Gates) has much impact on individual products.

He will work at a much higher level, as a sort of visionary, giving broad suggestions of where the company goes, rather than deciding on individual products.

For example, when Microsoft started the world was mainframe oriented, and the home computer was just a baby "toy".

Bill Gates had the foresight to see the future of "the PC in every home" and "the PC on every desktop".

He used a mixture of technical skill and dodgy business practices to make sure that almost every computer had Windows on it, and then that Office became the world wide standard.

So for a while the world was "Windows centric" and everybody had to have Windows applications.

Then Google came along and showed that actually you could do almost everything in a browser that you could do in Windows, and all of a sudden Microsoft could see their "Windows centric" world going away.

So now Microsoft are moving more to "Windows Live" where things are web based, like many of the Google products.

It is that sort of big decision, whether to move into web based programs while still offering the traditional Windows and Office that Bill Gates would have looked at.

[jno]

I think it's a while since he personally programmed any software, so not much difference either way.

[Gromit]

Can they be any worse?

[sp1214]

His generousity towards his nominated charities does obviously not extend to the EU where he has been screwing us for ages. So much so that the EU has levied an enormous fine on Microsoft.

[~spaced~]

I think out of all the responses, Gromit seems to the have hit the nail on the head. How much worse can they get.

[vehelpfulguy]

>How much worse can they get.

I have to say I get very annoyed when people throw glib statements out like this.

I am no Microsoft fan, but if their products were that bad would there be so many people, and so many companies, using Microsoft software.

Windows is running on HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of PCs all over the world. Is it so bad that people are taking it off and replacing it with Linux. No they are not.

Microsoft Office costs hundreds of pounds, Open Office is free. Is MS Office so bad that people are taking it off and replacing it with a free OpenOffice. No they are not.

Many companies run Windows Server software on their servers. Is it so bad they replace it with Linux, or Sun, or HP or some variation of Unix. No they dont.

Is IE so bad everybody is stopping using it (there are plenty of other free browsers). No

Is Outlook so bad everybody is stopping using it (there are plenty of other free email clients). No.

I am not saying their products are the best (and in many cases, like IE, people only use it because it comes free with Windows), but they cannot be that bad or we would all try to find alternatives.

[code1]

Like a gynaecologist, I am sure although he has departed that he will still keep his hand in the business...