Editorial: Gates looks out of Windows

For the 33 years of its existence, Microsoft has been identified primarily with one charismatic person "" Bill Gates, or William Gates III. From next week, though, the 52-year-old Gates will focus on philanthropy as he gives up his title as 'Executive Chairman' of the $58 billion company, and switches to plain 'Chairman'. He will work only one day a week with the firm that he founded as a Harvard drop-out. The technology world is not surprised, since Mr Gates had announced his planned exit two years ago. He gave up being CEO almost eight years ago, making way for colleague and college buddy Steve Ballmer. That has given the Redmond giant the time to make the transition effective under his and Ballmer's guidance. A parallel can be drawn with how NR Narayana Murthy has transitioned gradually from being the main driver of the company that he founded (and led strongly, to make Infosys India's second largest IT services provider), to someone who focuses on philanthropy. Infosys has continued to prosper under Nandan Nilekani and now under Kris Gopalakrishnan, despite rough markets in the US and elsewhere.

 

Microsoft, too, has been readied for the transition. The finance and business acumen is provided by Mr Ballmer while technological prowess is in the hands of two people "" the research and strategy head, Craig Mundie, and the chief software architect (a designation that Gates held for some time) Ray Ozzie, founder of Groove Networks which was bought by Microsoft in a bid to get Ozzie on the rolls. Both the techies report to Mr Ballmer, and are charismatic in their own right. Mr Ozzie happens to be the originator of Lotus Notes, ironically a property that is now with rival IBM.

Interestingly, even as Infosys struggles to maintain momentum in changed market conditions, Microsoft has been beset with problems. Threatened by the success of Google, Microsoft has tried to buy Yahoo! Inc for its search engine. The deal turned sour, and Google has turned the tables by now talking of a partnership with Yahoo! However, even if Microsoft had acquired Yahoo! (some analysts say this remains a possibility), it would have cornered only 29 per cent of internet searches "" half of Google's 58.7 per cent. Microsoft shareholders, meanwhile, are happy since an expensive takeover battle could have resulted in the difficult task of integrating two large corporations.

Then, Windows 7 (the new operating system which is in the works after Vista) is already being reviewed by the US government. This comes on the heels of the European Union's strictures against the software giant on inter-operability issues. Microsoft has also been told to wait for "several months" before the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) takes a final decision on whether its Office Open XML (OOXML) file format will be an international standard or not, since four national standards body members "" Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela "" have appealed against the final vote.

In effect, as Mr Gates strengthens his foundation, Microsoft has to work out ways to fight Google on the internet. To his credit, Mr Ballmer brought in Mr Ozzie to implement the vision of making the software giant 'Live'. But it still has to fight the likes of handset giant Nokia (Symbian OS) in the mobile space. It also has to convince governments worldwide that it is a trustworthy company and has open standards and inter-operability issues close to its heart.