Gates reaction: What everyone is saying
No one is short of opinions when it comes to tech mogul Bill Gates. Not even President Bill Clinton. So, when Gates on Thursday handed his title of CEO over to Steve Ballmer to focus on software development, industry leaders and ZDNN readers were quick to take up their electronic pens.
"Steve's promotion will allow me to dedicate myself full time to my passion: building great software and strategizing on the future and nurturing and collaborating with the core team helping Steve run the company." -- Bill Gates
"Many people think that the barrier to a Microsoft breakup is more personal than financial. One interpretation of today's announcement is that Bill Gates is further disengaging from the business, making it easier to consider a breakup of the company. But that may be reading too much into today's news." -- James Love, director of consumer advocate Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology
"Other than the fact that Steve Ballmer is less rich than Bill Gates, those two are Siamese twins." -- David Wu, financial analyst
"Ballmer is a very able (manager), and Gates is a genius when it comes to technology. I'm interested to see what happens." -- President Bill Clinton, on CNBC
What ZDNN readers think
"Uh-oh... If you thought Microsoft software was bad before, just imagine what's going to happen now that Gates can devote ALL his time to screwing it up." -- Michael Maginnis, senior systems engineer
"I think the real change for Microsoft will come when Ballmer steps down also. They need some new blood at the top, someone who hasn't been there for 20 years and is not a billionaire." -- John Galt
"This is no big surprise. Bill Gates has been building up to it for over a year now. For one thing, he has become quite taken with fatherhood, and the role he now will be in gives him the involvement he wants with a good deal more time for the family." -- Joel Tamburo
"I think that this is a very smart move for them. Gates should spend time in quality control though. For now though the two most important steps are quality control and to create a plan on how to split up the company in case losing the antitrust case is assured. That way any break up would be favourable to Microsoft." -- Mike, Webmaster
Reuters contributed to this story.
Gates Steps Aside: For full coverage see the News Roundup
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