Bill Gates's Last Speech

Ian Lamont writes "Bill Gates, in an address to the TechEd Developers conference, talked about Microsoft's plans for hosted services, and revealed that the company is planning data centers on 'a scale that we haven't thought of before' that will apparently enable the company to offer all of its server-based products over the Internet. The talk did not include details in terms of capacity or scale. This was Gates's final publicly scheduled speech as a full-time Microsoft employee, and he acknowledged that Microsoft's success is 'due to our relationship with developers.' On July 1, he will start spending most of his time at The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation." After that date he will be devoting his "20% time" to Microsoft.

Comments

You will be missed bill

[Dragoonkain]

You are a true American Hero

Re:You will be missed bill

[Yaztromo]

Isn't it "Microsoft put the succ in success?"

That's a bug that will eventually be fixed in SP1.

Yaz.

Re:You will be missed bill

[jeevesbond]

Microsoft software is only free if their time has no value. ;-)

Re:You will be missed bill

[rrhal]

Oh no there is a cost. Trust me, a terrible cost.

Re:You will be missed bill

[dmgxmichael]

What cost? They're Microsoft employees - they don't have any souls.

So ends the era of Gates

[wal9001]

From now on, Microsoft's success will be due to their relationship with developers, developers, developers, developers.

MS reliability

[xaxa]

Five eights availability!

Re:MS reliability

[eclectro]

Imagine the size of the switch they're gonna need to reboot the data center!!

Really?

[Darkness404]

On July 1, he will start spending most of his time at The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation." After that date he will be devoting his "20% time" to Microsoft.

Are you sure that that isn't just what he says he will be doing and he is really trying to become the Debian project leader?

Re:don't let the door

[aweraw]

it wasn't until he let the chair-thrower Steve Ballmer take over the company that MS started to become really "evil". No, not really... MS was just as evil back then, they were just more covert about it.

What changed with Ballmer coming in as CEO was that they became more brash about it. Have you heard of the "frog in boiling water" experiment? Gates was like that - slowly turning up the heat, then before you realize it, you're cooked. Ballmer is more like, first boil the pot of water while cackling maniacally and pointing at you, then pour it directly on your head.

Re:don't let the door

[Mongoose Disciple]

Indeed, IIRC they even had an internal slogan -- "it's not done til Lotus won't run", or something like that.

If you've used Lotus, you'd know that's not evil. :)

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Broken Toys]

If spell checking were a requirement, 98% of the Internet would be shut donw.

Re:There building something

[ElizabethGreene]

Mr. Gates, You get a lot of flack here on /., but one thing is undeniable. Without Microsoft the IT world would be a vastly different and poorer place. So long, and thanks for all the fish. -ellie

Re:'Millions' of Servers

[thewils]

Microsoft already has 'Millions' of Servers. It's called the Storm botnet.