General
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Written by Daniel
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Monday, 29 December 2008 11:27 |
Having bid farewell to Bill Gates, Microsoft tempered its appetite for Yahoo, tweaked Vista, leapt into cloud computing, allowed a peek at Windows 7, and warmed up to open source.
By J. Nicholas Hoover InformationWeek December 15, 2008 04:00 AM
In any era of change, there are bound to be many stories underscoring tension and difficulty as well as others pointing the way forward and laying out the new vision. 2008 was full of these for Microsoft
The company is striving to find its footing as it shifts from long dominance in a proprietary client-server world to a more uncertain future where competition comes from open source, the Web and other corners. Old leaders are on the way out, while new faces and ideas are beginning to show their influence.
So, without further ado, the top ten stories of 2008 for Microsoft, still the 800-pound gorilla nobody can afford to ignore.
1. Bye, Bye Bill
There were plenty of changes in management at Microsoft in 2008, starting at the top with the company's co-founder and one of the most influential people in the history of computing. Bill Gates left his full-time role this summer as the company's chairman and chief architect to spend more time with his charitable foundation.
Microsoft rang in the new year as it has for a number of years, with Gates giving an address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, including a humorous video anticipating Gates' last day at the company. [Comments...] |