Bill Gates is removing himself from day to day operations for MS in July 2008. So far stock hasn't net moved much in after market activity.

Here's a headline/story I"d love to see: "Gates to join Google after noncompete expires in late 2008." Said Gates: "Every other highly creative developer has already left for Google due to our growing bureaucracy and inability to get products out to market on time. I figured after showing such loyalty to Microsoft over the years I was entitled to my day in the sun...not to mention the Google options."

Overdue.

I noticed their evangelist Scoble bailed this week. Just another brick out of the wall.

I don't follow Bill Gates day-to-day activities; however, I like Microsoft (MSFT) the company.

Regardless of the naysayer opinion of Microsoft's Windows Operating System (OS), it was the first working software primarily designed to be user friendly for the masses (aka "little people"). It may not be perfect but what software application is?

When MSFT develops software for the general public, they do not have the luxury of endless debugging to produce the perfect application and may at times deliver a product with a lots of internal garbage. That is the nature of software development. If the consumer desires bug-free, works perfectly first time out of the box software applications, then they should expect years between product release and an unattractive selling price.

Software development is truly more art than science because rarely will you encounter two software developers who will independently code the same line exactly the same way.

Today, new application development packages are available that make error reduced software development possible, however give MSFT the credit for opening the door to the lower priced, practical, user friendly applications the consumer takes for granted today.

Last I heard, Gates owned about 900 million shares of his stock. Think he'll unload?

I like the Gates Foundation's approach to tackling problems: find interventions with the highest cost/benefit ratio and then throw brains and NOT unlimited funds at them to find solutions.

I met Bill Gates a few years ago at a public function. Before that I didn't think much of him. His demeanor and friendliness surprised me. I think its a great move for not only him but the world as a whole. His Foundation has the means to make the world a better place. Good luck Bill.

I've never met BG, but I've heard he was good and sharp guy from some employees there who dealt with him...He was always engaged and remembered names of people and importantly what they last discussed a year prior...Amazing given the size of the company...

On the other hand SBalmer would be decribed as a "nightmare"...I think he is the wrong guy for a company like this. Besides he looks like that other crook from Tyco..Kozlowski...LOL Also, note GOOG in AH today...hmmm

Great that Gates was shamed into philanthropy early (by boorish behaviour in the MSFT antitrust trial) because he has done wonderful things.

But, why is windows still so sucky? If good (non-buggy) software is so impossible to develop, how does Apple manage to do so?

I use both, and apple continues to shine. Per Mossberg in todays NY Times, you can now run windows fast, and immediately switchable, in the new Macbooks!

No wonder Gates is giving up the ghost for philanthropy ...

Gates foundation and all the excellent causes it supports will very much benefit - with Bill devoting more time (and perhaps even $s).

I don't know why others bash him so much. He has singlehandedly donated more $s (and perhaps time & effort) to charity than the rest of the 499 richest in the forbes-500 COMBINED.

Contrary to one the the comments above, I don't think he was 'shamed into charity' - he has been at it contributing big $s as early as 20 years ago - way before his competitors decided to use courts to get Microsoft instead of making better products.

i will not claim to know mister softee on a fundamental basis. with near ubiquity, who could? it's like saying you could handicap the tides of the ocean.

however, trading wise, no one has honestly made money owning shares in this bloated float for years and years. it is overowned by the entire world. who is left to buy?

it has become a comfort stock, a stock people who own mutual funds like to see on their quarterly reports. they feel comforted because their bloated mutual fund may not be doing much performance wise but hell....at least it owns mister softee.

technically, on a five year basis, it could be considered oversold. therefore it could bounce here with the market....but how far can it go? 26? 28? i am sorry but i trade as hard as i know how and i cannot pay my bills getting long a stock that is going to go up three or four gentleman's points while the rest of the markets swings like a banshee at a wake.

remember, this is not your crazy cousin's hot tip on a growth stock. this is a fully capitalised big cap that went parabolic a few short years ago. do you know how long it takes to work off the collapse of a parabolic rise? ask anyone who was long gold in the 80's and the 90's. by the close of the 90's, the wall street community was openly laughing and ridiculing anyone who would be so silly as to get long gold.

microsoft is a ten dollar stock.

also...(please forgive my verbosity but msft is still an important stock, a tell on some levels. it deserves some analysis)....this stock recently broke down out of a pennant formation. this formation started forming with the low made in july of '02. the longer a pennant formation takes to form, the more significant it is when that formation is violated to the upside or the downside. if the stock starts breaking the 18-19 area, look out below.

my conclusion? if ya like mister softee, and ya want get long it, put your g.t.c. order in to buy at 10 or 12 and wait for a year or two.

the only way the stock can avoid a return to the prices of its adolescence is to do what j.d. rockefeller with standard oil - split it up. unleash the parts of the behemoth and let them trade independently. at that point, bill gates would be the wealthiest man not in the world but in the history of the world. if anyone knows him, please tell him i am available for hire. the suits around him would not have the nads to tell him what i just suggested - split it up. unleash the trapped innovation. and p.s., i wouldn't touch INTC or CSCO either. different names, same boat.

I like to look at the facts. When Gates started his Microsoft, nobody had a computer. Now, everybody has a computer. Bill Gates changed the world in a tangible way. If he can do for health and education what he did for computers, it will be a boon to us all. He is, like Ballmer mentioned in today's announcement, the greatest philanthropist of all time ... and he's about to become even greater.

just for the hay of it, as an alternative to joining in the eternal microsoft love fest, if you want to look at some "fundamental" picks that could have put in their bottom, go back to last week and find b. cara's write-up on the homebuilders. if these stocks are not washed out, then no stocks will ever be washed out. because i want to be honest and put my money where my mouth is, i am not long the builders but i will look to do leap calls on toll and ryland in the next few days. mr. cara made a great point that i highlighted - it is not just the price of money that makes someone buy a house. it is personal income growth. in the 80's people bought homes paying double digit vig. the price of the money did not stop them from building. if this market - even for the short term - has put in some sort of a bottom, the homebuilding thesis could work. again, for the sake of honesty, i am not long yet. coming off of these lows i got long the indices because, quite frankly, in a violent up or down move, i have got to get paid. i can't get long a group and watch them not rally while the market is roaring. i prefer to use the diamonds and the oex.

just for the hay of it, as an alternative to joining in the eternal microsoft love fest, if you want to look at some "fundamental" picks that could have put in their bottom, go back to last week and find b. cara's write-up on the homebuilders. if these stocks are not washed out, then no stocks will ever be washed out. because i want to be honest and put my money where my mouth is, i am not long the builders but i will look to do leap calls on toll and ryland in the next few days. mr. cara made a great point that i highlighted - it is not just the price of money that makes someone buy a house. it is personal income growth. in the 80's people bought homes paying double digit vig. the price of the money did not stop them from building. if this market - even for the short term - has put in some sort of a bottom, the homebuilding thesis could work. again, for the sake of honesty, i am not long yet. coming off of these lows i got long the indices because, quite frankly, in a violent up or down move, i have got to get paid. i can't get long a group and watch them not rally while the market is roaring. i prefer to use the diamonds and the oex.

just for the hay of it, as an alternative to joining in the eternal microsoft love fest, if you want to look at some "fundamental" picks that could have put in their bottom, go back to last week and find b. cara's write-up on the homebuilders. if these stocks are not washed out, then no stocks will ever be washed out. because i want to be honest and put my money where my mouth is, i am not long the builders but i will look to do leap calls on toll and ryland in the next few days. mr. cara made a great point that i highlighted - it is not just the price of money that makes someone buy a house. it is personal income growth. in the 80's people bought homes paying double digit vig. the price of the money did not stop them from building. if this market - even for the short term - has put in some sort of a bottom, the homebuilding thesis could work. again, for the sake of honesty, i am not long yet. coming off of these lows i got long the indices because, quite frankly, in a violent up or down move, i have got to get paid. i can't get long a group and watch them not rally while the market is roaring. i prefer to use the diamonds and the oex.

I am looking for bad companies to go short during these rallys. The Eastman Kodak (EK) story seems to keep going from bad to worse. This looks like it may hit the teens before someone swoops in to take them over. The cash is drying up over there fast.

After tracking the stock for a while, it seems to get a boost on rally days. Is that attributed to index buying? I can't imagine anyone going long the stock at these levels. The business model is suspect and management execution is horrible.

Re: "But, why is windows still so sucky? If good (non-buggy) software is so impossible to develop, how does Apple manage to do so?"

Because Apple's OS is designed to operate on a single proprietary platform - APPLE's. Microsoft OS however, may be operated on any hardware, save maybe Sun's Micro and a few Super Computers :-).

Re: i wouldn't touch INTC or CSCO either. different names, same boat.

IMHO, Cisco (CSCO) may be in a different league. It's management is superlative; It is a telecommunications company - a highly desirable commodity worldwide; and it's spending billions on stock buybacks. I'm bullish - longterm.