Gates Plans to Log Off as Scheduled

Bill Gates says that, despite a surge in competition from all sides of the market, his phased exit from Microsoft has been bug-free so far. His two-year transition period halfway done, the chairman and former CEO says that his handpicked successors have been successfully picking up the slack. But doubters say Gates can't fully disengage at such a critical time.

New players like Google are rising to challenge the software giant's dominance, and, despite rising profits, Microsoft's stock has stayed flat since the dot-com era. “It’s very hard for someone at his age, who has built a company with that much success and with continuing challenges to really walk away,” says a Harvard business school professor. (More Bill Gates stories.)