a change is gonna come

Life in a technology company is never quiet. There's always a change on the horizon. This is especially true of my particular corner of this particular technology company: news from several companies impacts me. I pay pretty close attention to news from both Microsoft and Apple. I also pay attention to news from around the industry.

Yesterday's big news came from my own company. Bill Gates, co-founder and current Chief Software Architect and Chairman of Microsoft, is going to reduce his role at Microsoft. He's handing off his title of Chief Software Architect to Ray Ozzie, will keep his role as Chairman (as long as he's re-elected to hold that position by the rest of the board, of course), and will work part-time for Microsoft beginning in July 2008. (Why July 2008? I assume it's because July is the beginning of our fiscal year.)

He's leaving to work more closely with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I really admire him for that. He's leaving behind a solid company that's making a billion dollars in profit every month, and is going to focus his time on making this world a better place. So far, the Gates Foundation has given away more than $10 billion, with more than half of that going to organisations dealing in global health.

As with any change of this magnitude, it'll be interesting to see what happens next. My Magic 8 Ball doesn't have any information for me, so I'll be watching with the rest of you.