Bill Gates Leaves Microsoft Board (cnbc.com) 36
Microsoft announced on Friday that Bill Gates is leaving the board. CNBC reports: "I have made the decision to step down from both of the public boards on which I serve -- Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway -- to dedicate more time to philanthropic priorities including global health and development, education, and my increasing engagement in tackling climate change," Gates said on LinkedIn. "The leadership at the Berkshire companies and Microsoft has never been stronger, so the time is right to take this step."
"With respect to Microsoft, stepping down from the board in no way means stepping away from the company," Gates said. "Microsoft will always be an important part of my life's work and I will continue to be engaged with Satya and the technical leadership to help shape the vision and achieve the company's ambitious goals. I feel more optimistic than ever about the progress the company is making and how it can continue to benefit the world." "It's been a tremendous honor and privilege to have worked with and learned from Bill over the years," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "Bill founded our company with a belief in the democratizing force of software and a passion to solve society's most pressing challenges. And Microsoft and the world are better for it. The board has benefited from Bill's leadership and vision. And Microsoft will continue to benefit from Bill's ongoing technical passion and advice to drive our products and services forward. I am grateful for Bill's friendship and look forward to continuing to work alongside him to realize our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more."
Gates is also stepping down from his position on the board of Berkshire Hathaway.
"With respect to Microsoft, stepping down from the board in no way means stepping away from the company," Gates said. "Microsoft will always be an important part of my life's work and I will continue to be engaged with Satya and the technical leadership to help shape the vision and achieve the company's ambitious goals. I feel more optimistic than ever about the progress the company is making and how it can continue to benefit the world." "It's been a tremendous honor and privilege to have worked with and learned from Bill over the years," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "Bill founded our company with a belief in the democratizing force of software and a passion to solve society's most pressing challenges. And Microsoft and the world are better for it. The board has benefited from Bill's leadership and vision. And Microsoft will continue to benefit from Bill's ongoing technical passion and advice to drive our products and services forward. I am grateful for Bill's friendship and look forward to continuing to work alongside him to realize our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more."
Gates is also stepping down from his position on the board of Berkshire Hathaway.
Revisionist history much? (Score:5, Funny)
"Bill founded our company with a belief in the democratizing force of software and a passion to solve society's most pressing challenges. "
I'm hoping his nuclear reactor designs work out better than Windows has.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
You don't remember what things were like before the standardization on Windows, do you? My mom's coworker had three computers on her desk, a Wang word processor, a CP/M machine that hosted the customer database, and something else that held the accounting software. To do billing she would pull up the hours billed that month on the latter machine, pull up the customer info on the CP/M computer, and type it all into the Wang. Of course there was no backup for any of those, only the accounting software had
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You don't remember what things were like before the standardization on Windows, do you?
Standardization is good. Standardization on Windows is not.
Re:Revisionist history much? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't remember what things were like before the standardization on Windows, do you?
Standardization is good. Standardization on Windows is not.
This. The PC revolution happened in spite of Microsoft, not because of it.
The GP doesn't remember what MS Windows was like before it ditched its 16-bit legacy. Even after that, it took awhile to achieve the kind of reliability that users of other OSes have taken for granted.
Re:Revisionist history much? (Score:5, Funny)
I think it was the mid-1990's that some of the source code for Windows was leaked. And it was hilarious the notes which were included. Stuff like (paraphrasing)...
"Why is this here!?!?!"
"Why is this still here!?!?"
"This was reported fixed two versions ago."
"Don't delete this part. Don't know why. Just told not to."
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You don't remember what things were like before the standardization on Windows, do you?
Standardization is good. Standardization on Windows is not.
I remember using a TTY with a modem.
I remember coding PL/1 on punch cards
I remember my Apple II+ with a CP/M card
I remember the turbo button on my PC.
Standardization is a wonderful thing, just like McDonald's or Wal-Mart. /s
Turbo button still exists (Score:2)
I remember the turbo button on my PC.
And I remember them because power plan settings [howtogeek.com] are still around on modern PCs.
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The non-turbo mode had nothing to do with power vs speed compromise.
It was there for programs that assumed the CPU was running at 4.77MHz and used timing loops.
Because "4.77MHz ought to be enough for anybody".
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What else was there? While everyone else was trying to create the perfect OS and GUI the enormous advantage that MS had was that Gates realized that 1) "perfect" was unattainable, 2) "almost perfect" would take a long time to create and be expensive, 3) customers needed a solution now, 4) a "good enough" OS, GUI and office suite really was good enough.
If Peter Norton had been able to turn off his quest for perfection long enough there might have been some competition, but really that was the only likelihoo
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Not a lot of people know this, but the PC was originally named the IBM PC. At any one time the Chief targeted various companys for extermination:;Apple, Intel, IBM, (the PC company [gotthefacts.org]) Lotus (remember them), Novell, Inc. HP fxxk HP [edge-op.org]. Not to mention the OEMs. Or as were referred to at the time "the delivery people".
The Lost 1984 Video: young Steve Jobs introduces the Macintosh [youtube.com]
>
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Microsoft made networking easy enough that you didn't need multiple years of study to do it adequately for most offices. Netware was great, Banyan Vines and Lantastic were kind of adequate, but if you wanted to be able to manage hundreds of users without a CNE then Microsoft Domain structure was the way you went. Novell dropped the ball when their LDAP implementation was three years late, horrendously expensive, and required already-certified people to completely recertify. In the meantime Active Directo
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“the way to shut out novell [edge-op.org] in the base is to either ship a full client or make it so there is no network connectivity”
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“Don’t know if you guys have seen this document yet, but it’s just another example of lies propagated by MS [edge-op.org]. There are some
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"You don't remember what things were like before the standardization on Windows, do you?"
I do. There was choice.
Re: Revisionist history much? (Score:1)
You don't remember what things were like before the standardization on Windows,
I sure as fuck do; the second computer I programmed on was a Trash 80; the first time I saw email was on a Wang in my dad's office in Building 2... and as a rather experienced MCSE, I recognize your post for what it is: a fucking pathetic attempt at distracting from the fact that Microsoft products are - and have always been - subpar dogshit.
Standards (Score:2)
You don't remember what things were like before the standardization on Windows, do you? My mom's coworker had {...} a CP/M machine that hosted the customer database
You are literally listing one of the older attempts at standards that predates Windows :
Notice how you're not listing a specific brand but just saying "a CP/M machine".
CP/M *was* one of the OS around which some software maker started to standardize.
It was available on a growing base of 8bit ZX80-based computers and had some software offering.
MS-DOS itself began out of some early attempt (QDOS) to expand CP/M to 16bit 8088/86, and the relative easiness to port code from CP/M on ZX80 to DOS on x86 was one of
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you already had universal OS's, CPM as you mention run across multiple brands of computers. unix was also already being used at that time (MS even had its own unix).
Windows became a 'standard' because of dirty tactics, not because everybody suddenly agreed it was the best way to go.
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Best way to go? No, but it was what was inexpensive, already available, and "good enough" for most uses. You could always purchase Norton Commander for more money, or wait year after year for Novell's LDAP to finally be issued, but most companies didn't have the time and money to waste.
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Probably the biggest thing the PC's had were spreadsheets, and over time better UI's fr things like word processing. Business apps are largely the same today as they were back then, it's basically oltp UI layout inside a window, with some exceptions with inreased functionalit
Shrewd move (Score:1)
Philanthropy has the better long-term return on investment, anyway.
It just isn't in dollars.
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Philanthropy has the better long-term return on investment, anyway.
It just isn't in dollars.
Much of philanthropy's ROI can be measured in dollars. Malaria rates in Africa have been cut in half over the last two decades. Economists estimate that this has benefited Africans by more than $12 billion annually in lower medical costs and higher productivity.
Bill Gates deserves a lot of credit for his part in this achievement.
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Yes, but "return on investment" generally is thought of as return to -oneself-, or one's corporation.
Agreed, expansion of that notion is to be commended.
The democratizing force of Microsoft software? (Score:5, Informative)
“One thing we have got to change is our strategy — allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by OTHER PEOPLES BROWSERS [slated.org] is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company
“I don’t even get go data on how JAVA applications on the web use runtime - the richness of these applications grows every day making it a crisis that we have not drawn the line.” [edge-op.org]
“In one piece of mail people were suggesting that Office had to work equally well with all browsers and that we shouldn’t force Office users to use our browser. This is wrong and I wanted to correct this” [edge-op.org]
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Wow, he really was evil. (probably still is). His thinking process is why I never made it very high in the companies I've worked at. I think he probably had problems sharing growing up.
What's funny is that people have no clue how much MS stifled innovation and crushed any competition. I won't start on my bloat rant.
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It just makes my day to see edge-op still around. I haven't seen that name since Groklaw got started.
I'm bummed that ... (Score:2)
... he left bored.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm sure he had 640k reasons to leave. That's enough for anyone!
No one will ever need more than that, anyway.
He's a smart sociopath (Score:2)
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Bill Gates is the modern day's Andrew Carnegie.
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I wonder who will be the next evil billionaire to go philantropic, will we have this same discussion in 20 years about Mark Zuckerberg?