Bill Gates rules out return to helm of Microsoft

Irish Sun (ANI) Thursday 15th December, 2011

Bill Gates has ruled out the possibility of ever returning to the helm of Microsoft and dismissed harsh barbs aimed at him by his former rival Steve Jobs.

According to a report by Fairfax Media, Microsoft founder contradicted rumours that he was considering a comeback and said he would instead concentrate full-time on philanthropic work with his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

"I'm part-time involved with Microsoft, including even being in touch this week to give some of my advice but that's not going to change - the foundation requires all of my energy and we feel we're having a great impact. And that will be what I do the rest of my life," Gates said.

Gates responded to the harsh criticism leveled against his personal and professional life by Apple's late visionary co-founder, The Herald Sun reports.

Jobs once called Gates "unimaginative", who hadn't invented anything. He also said that "Gates would be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger".

Gates said Jobs was wonderful competition, but that "Microsoft machines outsold his machines by a lot he was always kind of tough on Microsoft, but that's fine, he was a brilliant person".

"Our work at Microsoft was super successful for all good reasons but Steve made huge contributions and he actually in his last few years was a lot kinder than that but over the years he did say some tough things," Gates added.

Jobs previously accused Gates of stealing the idea of a mouse-operated graphical user interface after seeing it on the original Macintosh.

However, Gates memorably responded to the accusation saying that he saw it differently.

"We both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found that you had already stolen it," he said. (ANI)