AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Microsoft Sales Are Up, and Gates Is Off — Business Week Online

There was little sentimentality at the co-founder’s last meeting as full-time chairman, but plenty of bullishness from Ballmer

by Jay Greene

In his last shareholder meeting as a full-time employee, Microsoft (MSFT) Chairman William Gates spent little time dwelling on the significance of the moment. It’s been more than a year since Gates said he’d step down from his role at Microsoft to focus on philanthropy (BusinessWeek.com, 6/16/06) beginning July 1, 2008. But it was only toward the end of presentation at the company’s annual meeting on Nov. 13 that Gates briefly reflected. “This is the dream we started Microsoft 30 years ago to pursue,” Gates said of the long-term bets being placed by Microsoft researchers. Next year, he noted, he’d be at the meeting as a “part-time chairman.”

As the company heads into the final year of Gates’ tenure, Microsoft is regaining part of the luster it has lost since the beginning of the decade. It still trails rivals such as Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) in key new markets, including online advertising and digital music. Still, sales jumped 27% in the quarter ended Sept. 30, a gain analysts consider astonishing (BusinessWeek.com, 10/26/07) considering Microsoft’s size.