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What happens when the great ones leave?
If you've been keeping up with your tech news, you'll know that Bill Gates has recently stepped down as chairman at Microsoft. The recent departure of Gates got me to thinking ... what will happen when a couple of the greatest minds in technology step down from their posts?When Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft (with Paul Allen), on April 4, 1975, he started with a vision, "a computer on every desk and in every home". Well he can rest assured that his vision became a reality as over 80% of American households have computers. Bill Gates was a true visionary when it came to advancing the computer software industry. If you need evidence of just how much a visionary Gates is, look no further than Microsoft's relationship with IBM.
In 1981 Microsoft was awarded a contract to provide the operating system for IBM's upcoming Personal Computer (PC), this operating system was known as PC-DOS. In 1985 Microsoft was approached by IBM to create a new operating system, called OS/2 (eventually replaced by Microsoft Windows), this OS would have a graphical interface that would bring IBM out of the dark ages of command-line computing. Instead of being bullied by IBM, who at the time was the biggest name in computers, Bill saw an opportunity. He knew that IBM, regardless of it's stature in the hardware game, was getting slapped around by a small hardware and software company out of Cupertino, California by the name of Apple Computer, Inc., who a few years prior had taken the world by storm with their Macintosh personal computer system. Knowing that IBM needed MS' software more than MS needed IBM's hardware, he negotiated a deal that would allow Microsoft to, not only, license their software to be run on IBM's hardware but on any other x86 chip-set out there. At the time this was unheard of, some smalltime two-bit software company telling IBM that they weren't just going to allow IBM to buy their software and run with it. In the end, IBM had no choice but to allow MS to have it's way, and with that Bill Gates took Microsoft from being a small software company out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to becoming the largest software company in the world. With this Bill Gates also attained the status of the worlds richest man.
Since then Microsoft has released a multitude of products in a number of markets, making them a major player in, not only operating systems but also, productivity applications, mobile platforms, online services, and consumer gaming systems, among other things. Most of these products are part of Bill Gates' ambitious nature and ability to pinpoint industrial needs versus the capability to provide a (sometimes) valuable solution.
So with Bill Gates big shoes being left to fill, where do they go from here? Do people really expect Steve Ballmer (CEO) to have the same prophetic knack as Gates? Because if they do, they are in for a rude awakening. Ballmer, while he's a great motivator, has never, in his days as CEO, shown the forward thinking to expand MS' business at the right time. Not saying the man isn't good enough to be CEO, I just don't think he's got the ability to identify consumer needs and with that information introduce "the next great thing". While Ballmer is the acting CEO, a job he took from Gates in January of 2000 (granted Bill never really relinquished CEO duties during this time, he just performed all duties under the title of "Chairman"), it has been reported that 2 other people will be assuming the rest of Bill's duties at MS. Ray Ozzie will be the new chief software architect, while Craig Mundie will take over chief research and strategy officer duties. So maybe with this three-headed approach Microsoft can still position itself as an industry leader even without Bill's brainpower.
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Now that Bill's gone, most have started to ponder when the other pioneer of the p.c. will be leaving his throne. That pioneer is Steve Jobs. Jobs co-founded Apple Computer, Inc. (along with Steve "Woz" Wozniak and the often forgotten Ronald Wayne) on April 1, 1976 in Cupertino, California. Much like Gate, Jobs was a visionary. He believed that the computer could change the world and he wanted to do such a thing. At the time the computer was this cold, lifeless, gargantuan piece of hardware that was only available in big corporate structures. He and his buddy Woz set out to rebel against the norm and prove to the world that computers weren't just machines for performing repetitive and boring tasks. The result was a computer that became the #1 system for artists everywhere.
Steve's mercurial brilliance is second to none in the computer industry. In December of 1979 Steve Jobs and Apple's engineers were granted three days of access to Xerox's PARC facilities to look over and take any technologies that they found useful ... essentially Apple was dumpster diving (PARC, meaning Palo Alto Research Center, was a group of engineers and programmers that Xerox hired to create technologies that Xerox would then look over and keep what they found useful). After having access to Xerox PARC, Steve discovered two technologies, that Xerox had veritably thrown away, the mouse and the GUI or Graphical User Interface. Jobs immediately felt that the GUI was the future of all computers, and he was right. The mouse and the GUI took the world by storm and was eventually copied by other OS makers, *cough*Bill Gates*cough* damn allergies, and with the release of the Macintosh, Apple did what it, and Steve Jobs, set out to do, slap IBM in the face and knock them down a few pegs.
In 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple, after an internal power struggle forced Jobs to relinquish his title as CEO, to John Sculley, Apple would eventually nosedive into near oblivion after enduring years of mismanagement, over-priced hardware and proprietary technologies. Jobs went on to found NeXT Inc. which was a computer company built machines with futuristic designs and a rock solid UNIX-based OS called NeXStep. While NeXT's computers were extremely powerful, and the NeXTStep OS was very advanced for it's time, it never caught on with consumers due to it's hefty price-tag. In his time away from Apple Jobs also purchased a small computer graphics division of George Lucas' Lucasfilms, a company which he later named Pixar.
Jobs was eventually brought back to Apple, after Apple purchased NeXT in 1996. Jobs soon became CEO, after Gil Amelio was ousted due to lost confidence from the board of directors, and quickly returned Apple to profitability and an innovator and authority in the computer industry as well as consumer electronics. Since Steve's return, Apple has had an amazing amount of success, with product releases such as Mac OS X (which is pretty-much just a more advanced version of the NeXTStep OS), iMac, iPod, iPhone, iBook, Powerbook, etc., etc. Steve singlehandedly brought Apple from the clutches of death and made them relevant again
So who can fill his shoes? Unfortunately, one of the downfall's of Steve's style is his control-freakish tendencies so I can't say that he's even got an immediate replacement in mind. Phil Schiller (SVP Marketing) is the first person to come to mind. But he much like Ballmer doesn't come off as someone who could lead a ship. There's also Jonathan Ive (SVP Industrial Design), he's a brilliant mind who has won countless awards for his design of products such as the iMac G4, iPhone, Power Mac G5 and a number of other hardware products Apple offers, but aside from imaginative product design I don't know anything about Ive's ability to run an entire company. Then there's Timothy Cook (COO), who is the second in command at Apple and has been credited with helping to straighten out Apple's messy operations in the late 90's. Cook isn't very well known outside of Apple circles, but has started to catch some attention due to his strong work ethic and what he's done behind the scenes at Apple, this may be the next in line around Cupertino. But for now, I'll continue to enjoy the good work Steve is doing.
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In the end, I guess when you consider the legacy that both Jobs and Gates will leave behind, it's nearly impossible for anyone to fill those shoes. Time will tell whether the three-headed attack in Redmond, Washington is the right approach for Microsoft sans Gates. With Apple, for now Steve Jobs is still the man to see and hopefully it stays that way for quite some time. I just hope that when Jobs leaves this time, his successor will be a much better leader and will continue Apple's ascent in the industry.
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