Well Bill "badboy" Gates is finally calling it a day, hanging up the Farrah slacks and polyester pullover, and focusing his freakish superbrain on charidee work. Poor old Bill - or rather rich-on-an-unprecedented-scale, middle-aged Bill - it can't have been easy being one of the most powerful people on the planet. But it's pretty obvious his shadow will loom large over the IT industry for many decades to come.

And it's fitting that BG has decided on a slow but steady transition over two years, rather than going out in a blaze of glory. Never one for fanfares, our Bill. I had the pleasure of attending one of his last major public speeches before the announcement and I can honestly say it was one of the dullest I have ever had the misfortune to sit - slumped with my head in my hands - through. And I have sat through my fair share of mind-numbingly tedious speeches, from Tokyo to the Tyne. Oh yes.

I'm sure the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will keep him out of trouble in the coming years, but we wouldn't want to see Bill shuffling around his house on a weekday morning with nothing to do. Might I suggest a hobby or two to keep the mind active and fill that Microsoft-sized hole in his life? Dominoes perhaps, or draughts... might even make some new friends