Tomorrow, Saturday the 4th of April 2015 marks forty years since the founding of a company we all know of; Microsoft. On April 4th, 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen started the company that would create MS-DOS and Office and later Xbox, Windows, HoloLens, Surface and much more. Bill Gates today sent a letter to all Microsoft employees discussing the leadership of the company under Satya Nadella and the many achievements Microsoft have made in computing on personal devices.
Bill Gates recently pulled back from the company to focus on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which was founded by himself and his wife, Melinda Gates. However, since Satya Nadella became CEO in February 2014, Gates took on a bigger role once again at the company to become ‘Technical Advisor.’ Bill Gates would now be advising Microsoft employees on new products and technologies.
Today, Bill sent the following letter to all Microsoft employees and while it wasn’t made public, The Verge was able to authenticate the validity of the letter.
Tomorrow is a special day: Microsoft’s 40th anniversary.
Early on, Paul Allen and I set the goal of a computer on every desk and in every home. It was a bold idea and a lot of people thought we were out of our minds to imagine it was possible. It is amazing to think about how far computing has come since then, and we can all be proud of the role Microsoft played in that revolution.
Today though, I am thinking much more about Microsoft’s future than its past. I believe computing will evolve faster in the next 10 years than it ever has before. We already live in a multi-platform world, and computing will become even more pervasive. We are nearing the point where computers and robots will be able to see, move, and interact naturally, unlocking many new applications and empowering people even more.
Under Satya’s leadership, Microsoft is better positioned than ever to lead these advances. We have the resources to drive and solve tough problems. We are engaged in every facet of modern computing and have the deepest commitment to research in the industry. In my role as technical advisor to Satya, I get to join product reviews and am impressed by the vision and talent I see. The result is evident in products like Cortana, Skype Translator, and HoloLens — and those are just a few of the many innovations that are on the way.
In the coming years, Microsoft has the opportunity to reach even more people and organizations around the world. Technology is still out of reach for many people, because it is complex or expensive, or they simply do not have access. So I hope you will think about what you can do to make the power of technology accessible to everyone, to connect people to each other, and make personal computing available everywhere even as the very notion of what a PC delivers makes its way into all devices.
We have accomplished a lot together during our first 40 years and empowered countless businesses and people to realize their full potential. But what matters most now is what we do next. Thank you for helping make Microsoft a fantastic company now and for decades to come.
I can’t wait to see what Microsoft has lined up for us in the coming years. The next few months, there’s a lot to look forward to from the company. Surface 3, Windows 10, HoloLens, Office 2016, Xbox One exclusives, Microsoft Band region expansion and loads more. Here at XboxMAD, we’ll be delivering as much coverage as we can of what the people of Redmond are up to. Here’s to the next forty years!
^Alan (@BeetleComet)
Alan Walsh is a games journalist, head writer at AR12Gaming. They contributed 52 articles to ICXM in 2015, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: leads editorial for AR12Gaming and reviews titles for OpenCritic.