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Bill Gates For Microsoft CEO?

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Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) had a good run under Bill Gates before he left his position as CEO to work full-time at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. That said, Bill Gates must also take some responsibility for the disastrous U-turn the company has taken in its finances and innovation.

Bill Gates to replace Steve Ballmer

According to salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) CEO Marc Benioff, Bill Gates is the only man for the job as Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) looks to replace Steve Ballmer, and his 33 years of Microsoft experience, in the next year.

“There is no clear candidate with the visionary skills to turn the company around other than Bill Gates,” Benioff told CNET. “He wouldn’t just be a magnet for a new vision, but for a talent pool of leadership.”

Benioff, over his career at Oracle and then as the founder of salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM), has never been a big Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) supporter, going as far as referring to the Redmond, WA based company as a “dinosaur” in 2009 and accusing Microsoft of  “trying to hold onto their past more than trying to create their future.”

Some might ask ‘who is Benioff to make these claims?’ Well, in the view of Forbes magazine, he’s just the CEO of a cloud computing giant deemed the most innovative company by the magazine for three consecutive years.

Microsoft’s tablet market failure

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s efforts to enter the tablet market has been a wholesale failure. The company recently wrote off nearly a billion dollars on unsold Surface inventory. The company’s decision to withhold Microsoft Office from both Android and iOS has failed to slow the sale of tablets running those operating systems. Rather, it has kept Microsoft from a revenue stream that would surely come if it opened up one of its most successful products of the last 20 years.

Benioff continues, “He could come back with new ways to run the company, let (his wife) Melinda run the charitable foundation, make changes and identify the next leader to come, with a clear window of three years.”

There is little question that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) sits at a precipice; there are a host of tech companies that no longer fear Microsoft in any way, shape or form. At the same time, and for the first time, you have a growing percentage of an entire generation that has never needed — nor used — a Microsoft product and have grown up with iOS or Android in their pocket.

Benioff clearly has his opinion but that opinion is not shared by LadBlokes or other gambling sites. Bill Gates is a 50-1 shot for the job, just above Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook who is available for wagering at 100-1 odds.

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Brendan Byrne
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