Microsoft
Founder Bill gates assumed the role of Founder & Technology Advisor to the
CEO of Microsoft on 5 February 2014.
With this he stepped down from the post of
Chairman of Microsoft. In his new role, Bill Gates will help Satya Nadella,
the new CEO
of Microsoft, in shaping
technology and product direction. He will devote more time in making Microsoft
Office more interactive and building a cloud platform as examples of ways
Microsoft can innovate in the future. For years, Gates has focused on the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation, and now that he is taking a more hands-on
role at Microsoft.
Journey of Bill Gates:
• In 1975, together with his childhood friend
Paul Allen, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for
the first microcomputer – the MITS Altair 8800.
• Gates oversaw Microsoft’s company
restructuring in June 1981, which re-incorporated the company in Washington
State and made Gates president of Microsoft and the Chairman of the Board.
• Microsoft launched the first version
of its Windows operating system on 20 November 1985, and in August, the
company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called
OS/2.
• Following Gates’s internal ‘Internet Tidal
Wave’ in May 1995, Microsoft began to redefine its offerings and expand its
product line into computer networking and the World Wide Web. The company
released Windows 95 in August 1995.
• Gates handed over the CEO position in 2000
to Steve Ballmer an old college friend and employee of the company since
1980.
• Allen resigned after a long-term illness,
while Gates became ‘chief software architect’ and Chairman of the Board.
• Microsoft went on to release Windows XP in
2001, followed by Windows Vista in 2007, Windows 7 in 2009 and Windows 8 in
2011.
• It entered the game console market
dominated by Sony and Nintendo, launching the first Xbox in 2001, and begun to
take on Apple in the smartphone market with the launch of Windows Phone in
2011, and the purchase of Nokia in 2013.
