Will Bill Gates pull a ‘Steve Jobs’ at Microsoft?

“In naming Satya Nadella as Microsoft’s new chief executive officer, the company also announced that co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates would no longer be chairman, confirming speculation that the iconic tech titan was on his way out,” Benjamin Pimentel reports for MarketWatch. “Well, not all the way out, it turns out.”

“In a curious twist, Gates, now known more for his philanthropic work than being a technology innovator, may actually play a more important role in the software behemoth he founded nearly 40 years ago,” Pimentel reports. “Some analysts see him playing a role similar to the one that his friend and rival Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple in 1997.”

MacDailyNews Take: They also see pink elephants riding unicycles and eating ice cream cones while farting rainbows.

“‘I think what Microsoft is trying to signal is that tying up Bill Gates as chairman and doing all the things a chairman does maybe not the best use [for him],’ IDC analyst Crawford Del Prete told MarketWatch,” Pimentel reports. “In effect, he added, Microsoft is saying, ‘“We see tremendous value in the vision of Bill Gates and we want to use him in a unique way.'”

MacDailyNews Take: Crawford Del Who?

He sees “tremendous value in the vision of Bill Gates?” What the… Wait, is this Gates’ tremendous “vision” that foresaw port-laden, thick-as-a-brick, stylus-based tablets focused on handwriting recognition or is it the “vision” that failed to notice, you know, The Internet?

Pimentel reports, “‘There’s a reason Microsoft got as far as they did under Bill Gates,’ he added. ‘They would be smart to recapture some of that elixir.'”

MacDailyNews Take: Is this Gates’ magical “elixir” that lied to IBM, ran out to bought QDOS, renamed it MS-DOS and pretended it was written by Microsoft or is this the “elixir” that ripped off the Mac’s look and feel and attempted to call it “innovation” enough times to make The Big Lie seem small?

Pimentel reports, “Perhaps in the same way that Apple recaptured its magic when Jobs returned, he added.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Hoo boy, thanks for the massive laughs, Crawford!

Holy crap, what an epic comedy this fiasco’s going to be!!!

And, BTW, watching Ballmer’s video welcoming Nadella as Microsoft’s new CEO was as cringeworthy as it gets.

(If you haven’t seen it, imagine Jennifer Aniston making a video for Brad Pitt in early 2005 extolling the virtues of Angelina Jolie.)

Our only question: Who was off-camera holding the shotgun on Ballmer, Gates, or did he make John Thompson do it?

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “SMac85” for the heads up.]

Related articles:
Microsoft names Satya Nadella as CEO; Ballmer’s and Nadella’s letters to employees – February 4, 2014
Satya Nadella? Seriously, Microsoft? – January 31, 2014
Microsoft said to be preparing to name Satya Nadella CEO – January 30, 2014