In the five years since Bill Gates surprised the technology world by announcing he would give up his title as chief executive at Microsoft, has the company changed?
Yes and no. While CEO Steve Ballmer has clearly retooled some parts of Microsoft to more closely mesh with his hard-driving style, the world's largest software maker still faces many of the same challenges: open source, legal skirmishes, and slowing growth in some of its core businesses.
The eventual shift of power to long-time friend and colleague Ballmer was expected, but the announcement itself, five years ago on Thursday, on Jan. 13, 2000, was something of a shock.
The ever-boisterous Ballmer presents a decidedly different face for the company than that of Gates, the more introverted techie who had headed the company since founding it with Paul Allen in 1975.
Ballmer reorganised the company into separate business units, changed the way workers are compensated and moved toward a broad strategy to expand on Microsoft's core products by slicing and dicing them in new ways.
"It's clearly Ballmer's company from a business perspective," said Directions on Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff. "The seven business units were largely his deal. It probably wouldn't have happened under Gates."
Another Ballmer-inspired change: Fostering a kinder, gentler image and greater trust among both customers and partners. Ballmer issues annual missives to his troops calling on them to build products that are more useful for customers and to be more responsive to customer needs.
Ballmer tackled Microsoft's image problems almost from day one. In one of his first public appearances after taking over the CEO reins, he talked about the company's dilemma. "Microsoft is a company that, in my opinion, is not very well-understood. For some people, we're the Windows company... we're known mostly by our stock market success. We're also, I think, to some extent viewed as the scourge of Silicon Valley. Unfortunately... we're known as a legal defendant," he told the Commonwealth Club of California back in February of 2000.
Gates, meanwhile, has become the brain trust behind some of Microsoft's most complex -- and risky -- product strategies, such as the new Longhorn release of Windows and the company's move into home entertainment.
