Can Yahoo save Microsoft?

It's got to be strange to be Bill Gates right now. If anyone should be able to look back on a career with satisfaction, he should. The co-founder of Microsoft is retiring later this month to devote his energies to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He leaves behind not just one of the world's most profitable and influential corporations but two entire industries. Before Gates started Microsoft 30 years ago, computers were things delivered by forklift, and software was free. Today, PCs are as ubiquitous as cellphones, and software is a quarter-trillion-dollar business.

By Fred Vogelstein

June 1, 2008