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http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/12/08/bill-gates-comeback/ What would a Bill Gates comeback look like? It wouldn't be the first time a legendary founder stepped back into the fray to right his faltering company. Perhaps Gates has noticed the success of his Seattle neighbor Howard Schultz, who returned to a badly bruised Starbucks (SBUX) only to help it surge. (Schultz was Fortune's 2011 Businessperson of the Year.) Michael Dell, Steve Jobs and Larry Page all pulled similar maneuvers. It wouldn't be the first time investors had flirted with the notion, either. Early this year, activist investor David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital publicly called current CEO Steve Ballmer a weight dragging down the company's share price, prompting the rumor that Gates might return. But Gates has been cool to the idea publicly, rebuffing it in 2010 and again this year in June, when he told the Daily Mail his work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation "is my job now." (Einhorn declined to comment for this story.) The company's stock price has been a thorn in Ballmer's side for a decade. At the end of 1999, Microsoft's best year for market price, shares were at almost $60. When Ballmer took over as chief executive in January 2000, the stock was still over $50. With the burst of the tech bubble, Microsoft's stock dropped steeply and hovered around $25 area through much of the decade, excepting a short rally above $35 in late-2007 and a dip under $20 during the 2008 financial crisis. Ballmer dumped much of his stock during the decade and Bill Gates gradually left daily operations. (Gates' last full day was in June 2008.) During that time, the stock stayed flat as competitors such as Oracle (ORCL) and Apple (AAPL) saw huge gains in their share price. |
