Bill Gates steps down as the Chairman of Microsoft on July 1st to transition to full time philanthropic efforts with the Gates Foundation. However, I wonder how effective Bill will be other than writing checks. You see Bill's never played well with others.

"Hear what Microsoft's chairman Bill Gates had to say during his last official visit to the UK before he 'retires' later this year. IT PRO attended the special event hosted by the Institute of Directors (IoD) and, after Gates had done his thing there was a Q&A session with the billionaire and industry figurehead." And also note how some of his answers match up rather nicely with F/OSS.

In addition to answering questions about how Microsoft plans to take on its rivals and capture the hearts and devices of consumers, Chairman Bill Gates spoke to CNET News.com on other topics, not all of which fit into Monday's Newsmaker piece. Here are a couple more questions and answers from Gates.

Bill Gates wants not only to make IE "extend" HTML but also to patent Office features that do so

Microsoft is beset with competition from all sides, unlike any it has seen in decades, and Bill Gates, who co-founded the company 32 years ago, still intends to step away next year as planned. But so far, Mr. Gates, Microsoft’s 51-year-old chairman, shows no sign of fading away.

Microsoft's last-minute lobbying in the US on behalf of its Office Open XML document format included a visit by outgoing chairman Bill Gates to a US Congressional committee last week.

Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., told the House Science Committee Wednesday that America's "position as the global leader in innovation is at risk."

Bill Gates was interviewed by the BBC’s Money Programme...Reading between the lines, Gates is essentially confessing that he would not have progressed had he and Paul Allen not found the source code.

If you are Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds, it is totally understandable to have an ego the size of the biggest planet. The two has been known to make comments that will forever keep the geek pride alive. If you want proof, just read the following quotes from Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds, and be the judge of who has a bigger ego between them.