Friday, June 16, 2006

Gates To Go

Microsoft Corporation Chairman, Mr. Bill Gates, has announced his planned retirement from the position of Chief Software Architect with immediate effect with a transition from active involvement in the company in the next two years.

With the closing share price today at US$22.07, Bill's current value in Microsoft is at US$21,582,782,680, give or take a few hundred million. With his huge resources, he intends to focus on his philantrophic ventures with his wife, Melinda.

I respect Bill's choice to move on to a very respectable, noble, and useful purpose in life, besides taking over companies or crushing their existence. Since the beginning of the year, I have been contributing to charities that I feel strongly for, like the International Committee of the Red Cross (specifically for the Somali war) and Wikipedia. Help support these needy organisations to help the poor and under-priviledged people in the world!

Back to Microsoft and Bill.

I remember the time when I was tinkering with OS/2 Warp during those days when everyone else was falling into Windows 3.1. Fortunately for Microsoft but too bad for IBM, OS/2's popularity dwindled and became relegated to server verticals. Still, it had a promising start, had it not been the loss of Microsoft's blessing and the lack of a growing application development market.

So, if you're the kind of guy who has billions of dollars on hand, try to do something good for people, animals or the environment once in a while. Expect nothing tangible in return, just a Good Feeling All Over.

<URL:http://www.microsoft.com/>
<URL:http://www.icrc.org/>
<URL:http://www.ibm.com/software/os/warp/>

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