Blog: Claudia Imhoff

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Bye Bye Bill -- It's Been a Heck of a Ride!

Bill Gates announced yesterday that he will step down as Microsoft's Chief Software Architect in July 2008. His mighty big shoes will be filled by Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's current CTO. Sadly it will be the end of an era. Read on to see what's next for the richest man in the world.

Mr. Gates will relinquish his day-to-day role at Microsoft to put his considerable talents into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He states, "With considerable wealth comes great responsibility. Many years ago I made it clear that almost all my wealth would be returned to society". Ah, if only other super-wealthy individuals had his philanthropic leanings -- the world would indeed be a better place.

So what will he do? Mr. Gates will be working side by side with his wife, Melinda, on medical and public health issues -- something the Foundation has always invested in. The Foundation has $29 billion (that billion with a B!) in assets and has been instrumental in fighting AIDS and malaria in Africa since its inception in 2000. Here is a snippet from the Foundation's web site... "Bill and Melinda Gates believe every life has equal value. In 2000, they created the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help reduce inequities in the United States and around the world. There are two simple values that lie at the core of the foundation’s work:

All lives—no matter where they are being led—have equal value.
To whom much has been given, much is expected."

Where does their money go? Here are just a few of the more recent grants:

Jun 6, 2006 CIDA Foundation
$1,499,673 over 3 years to provide a low-cost Bachelor of Business Administration degree to disadvantaged South African students

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May 24, 2006 Living Cities Inc. The National Community Development Initiative
$2,000,000 over 18 months to support community development

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May 24, 2006 Shorebank Enterprise Group Pacific
$3,300,000 over 1 year to support a septic loan program to benefit low-income people in the Hood Canal watershed area

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May 23, 2006 Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH)
$27,844,078 over 5 years to strengthen the capability of developing countries to reduce cervical cancer incidence and deaths.

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May 4, 2006 NewSchools Venture Fund
$29,640,000.00 over 41 months to support work with charter management organizations, and extend the model of scalable high quality schools through the development of hybrid organizations

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And on it goes.

So what will happen back on the farm? As mentioned, Ray Ozzie gets Mr. Gates' old title, Craig Mundie becomes the Chief Research and Strategy Officer -- both will start reporting to Steve Ballmer (whose job title does not change) in 2008. Certainly Microsoft is seeing turbulent waters with the delayed Vista project, competitors on all fronts, open source in-roads, and so on. We will all be keeping a close eye on Microsoft's future with the major driver moving onto other pastures...

Yours in BI Success,

Claudia

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