15 Ways Microsoft Can Reinvent Itself for the Post-Gates Era
Artwork: Chip Taylor A computer on every desk and in every home,
running Microsoft software. That, Bill Gates has often said, is
the vision on which he and Paul Allen founded their software
company in 1975. There's debate over when the mantra was first
articulated--the earliest known instances&#160;go back only
to&#160;the mid-1980s--but this much is undeniable: Microsoft
made that audacious goal a reality.  Today, as Gates prepares to
step down from day-to-day management of the company, another
fact is clear: The modern Microsoft remains a company in search
of a second act. True, it remains one of the world's most
profitable enterprises, raking in more dough in its 2007 fiscal
year than Apple, Google, Yahoo, Oracle, and Adobe combined. But
the cracks in the Microsoft hegemony aren't just showing,
they're growing.  Bill Gates On the Web, it's Google, not
Microsoft, that inspires the blend of awe and fear that Gates
and company commanded in the 1990