Retiring Microsoft Official to Run Gates Foundation

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A Microsoft executive has been named the new chief executive of the largest foundation in the world, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The executive, Jeffrey S. Raikes, 49, will replace Patty Stonesifer, another former Microsoft executive who helped Bill and Melinda Gates start the foundation in an office over a pizza parlor. Mr. Raikes will join the foundation on Sept. 2, a day after he retires from Microsoft, at roughly the same time that Mr. Gates begins devoting most of his time to its affairs.

“I thought about teaching; I thought about agribusiness,” said Mr. Raikes, who recently bought 1,800 acres of farmland in Nebraska near his family’s 2,600-acre farm. “But when I had the opportunity to sit down with Bill and Melinda and saw all the talent and experience here, I became very excited.”

The $37.3 billion foundation is growing rapidly, in part to satisfy the terms set by the billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett when he committed the bulk of his fortune to it.

Under the terms of Mr. Buffett’s gift, the foundation must commit to spend whatever amount of money he sends it annually within a year, in addition to spending what it would be required to spend under law without his contribution.

That means the foundation each year will commit to spend the equivalent of the entire endowment of all but the 16 wealthiest foundations in the country in 2006, the latest year for which data exists.

Unlike Ms. Stonesifer, who insisted on doing the job for $1 a year, Mrs. Gates said, Mr. Raikes would receive compensation in line with what leaders of other large foundations were paid. She did not, however, say how much.

Mr. Raikes joined Microsoft in 1981 as employee No. 105. His wife, Tricia, was employee No. 75, and they were the first Microsoft couple. As president of Microsoft Business Division, he built a team that nearly doubled the unit’s revenues to $16 billion annually before he announced his retirement.

The Raikeses have a family foundation that had about $126 million in assets at the end of 2006, according to its tax forms. They have made grants to various local youth and education organizations and last year committed $2.5 million to the expansion of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University.

Mr. Raikes said he had two reservations about taking the Gates job. The first was whether his family would approve of his taking another position that required large amounts of time and travel. His 14-year-old daughter, in particular, had hoped he would work from home, but he said she aspired to be a doctor and pilot working to help needy people and quickly gave her support.

His other concern was even more personal.

“I did have some thought about the amount of human misery I am going to see and be exposed to and how that was going to impact me personally,” Mr. Raikes said. “Melinda was very helpful in helping me think through that, and I got over those two hurdles.”

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Does Ballmer Need To Go?

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Microsoft’s dramatic decision this weekend to withdraw its offer for Yahoo and not pursue a hostile bid raises a whole host of questions. What happens to Yahoo now? What happens to Microsoft? Or is this just a tactic to drive down the price of Yahoo’s shares so that Microsoft can go hostile with a lower offer? And if the deal really is dead, does Steve Ballmer need to start looking for a new job?

This last question may not be so hypothetical. Ballmer has been the big driver behind this deal at Microsoft—some would say to the point of obsession. After the disaster that has been Windows Vista (Microsoft’s core product), Ballmer may have realized he needed to redeem himself in the eyes of Microsoft’s board. And the “transformative” deal with Yahoo was the way he was going to do it.

One reading of Ballmer’s obsession with the deal is that he felt his job was on the line if he didn’t get it done. According to one secondhand account that leaked to us yesterday before the deal was called off, over the past week Ballmer increasingly has been “yelling and screaming at employees for almost no reason” and is being “more of a tyrant than usual.” One executive on the Microsoft deal team supposedly made a comment about “not having to worry about Ballmer anymore” if the Yahoo deal fell through. What the exec didn’t know, though, was that Ballmer was in earshot, and he screamed back that the deal would go through and that he wouldn’t let the board “crucify” him.

As things stand, the fact that Ballmer was not able to close the deal could put his job in jeopardy. The big questions are: If he really does walk away, can he put this distraction behind the company? Or is it too late for Ballmer? If Microsoft’s board loses patience with him, it might have to ask Blll Gates to temporarily come back as CEO until it finds a replacement. After all, Ballmer has already made a strong and convincing case for why Microsoft needs Yahoo to make its online and advertising strategy work (it needs the scale of Yahoo’s display and search advertising inventory to compete with Google). It is not clear how it can achieve its objectives on its own or through other acquisitions.

Maybe Ballmer backed down because he realized the deal was becoming too big of a distraction and he didn’t want to drag it out further given Yahoo’s continued resistance. (And save his job in the process). Or perhaps he thinks he can still get it done by making Yahoo’s stock price collapse and come back with a hostile offer. (After all, if you are going to go hostile, you’d want to drive down the stock price of the target company to make your offer look even more attractive to shareholders). We’ll find out later this week.

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GK-K8000 keyboard up close and personal

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This morning we are gathered with worldwide media at the Gigabyte headquarters in Taiwan for their Spring Break event and Plug-Fest 2008. It’s an event which allows media to get an early look at Gigabyte’s upcoming Intel P45 Express based motherboards.

Presentations have just completed and we are on a break and the benchmarking session will begin shortly. At our benchmark desk when we arrived was sitting a GK-K8000 gaming keyboard. We were told they were delayed due to design issues but there seems to be many of them scattered throughout this meeting room. Maybe they are not the final version though.

First impressions are good though… first thing I noticed is just how solid it is. If I were to estimate, I’d say it weighs around 1KG without cables attached and the keys are very solid and feels great when typing. It has a detachable USB connector which is a bit odd but might be good if you are moving around to LAN parties for example.

We’ll try and take one away with us when the event is finished so we can spend some more time with it and give you our full opinion. For now, it’s time to break and then we’re getting into the P45 benchmarking and overclocking.

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Your Chance to Finish a Movie Microsoft Started

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CALLING all would-be Judd Apatows, Martin Scorseses and Coen brothers. Your cinematic ambitions may be supported by an unlikely patron, based not in Hollywood but more than a thousand miles to the north in Redmond, Wash.

That geographic clue gives away the sponsor: the Microsoft Corporation, which is underwriting an online movie-making contest in an effort to stimulate sales and burnish the reputation of its Windows Vista operating system. The product has met with mixed reviews since its introduction last year.

The contest is another example of the popular marketing trend known as user-generated content. It is intended to promote the higher-end version of Vista — Windows Vista Ultimate — among videophiles, early adopters of technology and filmmakers.

The contest, which is to begin on Thursday, is called the Ultimate Video Relay and has its own Web site (ultimatevideorelay.com), a spinoff of the Windows Vista Ultimate Web site (ultimatepc.com). The relay reference comes from the invitation to computer users to complete a story titled “The Cube” in several stages. The tale, a humorous cross between “The Matrix” and “The Office” (or “Office Space”) begins with a six-minute clip that can be watched on the relay Web site. The clip is directed by Kyle Newman, the director of “Fanboys,” a coming movie about “Star Wars” aficionados.

The online clip is labeled Act I of “The Cube” and ends abruptly. Contestants are supposed to finish the story by providing first a middle (Act II) and later an end (Act III). The entries will be judged by visitors to ultimatevideorelay.com.

Microsoft is teaming up for the contest with TriggerStreet.com, the Web site of a production company owned by the actor Kevin Spacey that is aimed at aspiring moviemakers and screenwriters. TriggerStreet.com and Microsoft were brought together by Omelet, a company in Los Angeles that works on advertising, entertainment and branding projects with marketers that in addition to Microsoft include Anheuser-Busch, NBC Universal and Toyota Motor.

“Omelet has helped us to amplify the impact of the contest by hooking us up with partners that have reach, influence and credibility,” said Barry Goffe, director for Windows client product management at Microsoft.

“I’ve done video editing on my PC and could probably write a white paper on it,” Mr. Goffe said. “But I’m a geek, not a Hollywood director” like Mr. Newman, he added, so such a technical approach would draw a far smaller audience than the contest.

Encouraging consumers to create content “is a very different approach for us,” Mr. Goffe said of the Windows division of Microsoft, but “I think it’s the best way to engage with our customers and achieve the long-term goals of the business.”

There is always a risk with user-generated content: the materials submitted by consumers may be at variance with the shiny, happy, official corporate approach to a product or brand.

For example, when the Chevrolet division of General Motors asked computer users in 2006 to create commercials for the Tahoe sport utility, many spots made pointed references to its large size and thirst for gasoline.

If the Microsoft contest is flooded with video clips that criticize or mock Vista, “I’d probably end up with a little bit of a red face,” Mr. Goffe said.

“But in the end I’d be happy,” he added, “if it generated that much noise and traffic.”

“One of the things that makes me feel O.K. about this,” Mr. Goffe said, “is that we’re not asking people to write a script that says ‘Windows Vista Ultimate is great’ or romances technology.” Rather, he added, the idea is to create content that in its tone would mirror the lighthearted approach of Act I of “The Cube.”

Shervin Samari, a partner at Omelet, acknowledged that marketers asking consumers to create content must be comfortable with giving up control of the ad-making process.

“Those brands willing to let go will make deeper connections with consumers,” Mr. Samari said. “There is that element of ‘You never know,’ but in this case we’re showcasing creativity and how the technology can help deliver that.”

Besides, he added, if restrictions were imposed on the intended contest audience — whom he described as “the filmmaking community, superenthused gadget fans and early adopters” — they “would just backfire, because these people are going to smell any funny business from a mile away.”

Microsoft has undertaken other efforts to improve perceptions of Vista, including price reductions and statements of support from senior corporate managers.

But reports of problem-plagued upgrades to Vista from Windows XP have been widespread. And ads from Apple that make fun of Vista are among the campaigns most often talked about online.

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iLiad Book Edition Launched

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iRex has launched a new iLiad called the "iLiad Book Edition". At €499, it is €150 cheaper than the original.




It seems to have very similar specs as the original iLiad, however it comes in a silver color and does not contain wireless networking.

It also comes with 50 free "Classic" books, presumably in the Mobipocket format.

It is set to go on sale Friday, May 9th.

A press release can be found here.

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