Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates has handed
over a core part of his work at Microsoft with immediate
effect.
Gates said he was relinquishing his day-to-day role at the
company in two years’ time to spend more time on his global health
and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
But Microsoft has created a new role to fill Gates’s research
responsibilities, that of chief research and strategy officer,
which current chief technical officer Craig Mundie will take on
immediately, Microsoft said.
The company has unveiled a two-year transition process where Ray
Ozzie, who created VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, takes over
Gates’s current role as chief software architect. Microsoft said
Ozzie would begin working side by side with Gates on all technical
architecture and product oversight responsibilities.
“This was a hard decision for me,” Gates said. “I’m very lucky to
have two passions that I feel are so important and so challenging.
As I prepare for this change, I firmly believe the road ahead for
Microsoft is as bright as ever.” Gates will give up all day-to-day
activities by July 2008.
