Gates leaves a duller tech industry behind

He's long been a figure that many people loved to hate but it seems Bill Gates will be sorely missed by readers of silicon.com - if only because he made the technology industry a more interesting place.

Having the world's richest man among its ranks certainly gave the high-tech industry a greater cachet and 49 per cent of readers polled by silicon.com said the tech world will be a less interesting place without the sometimes controversial, often mocked but undoubtedly successful Microsoft boss now he has announced his plans to step down from his day job at the software giant.

However, a third of respondents disagreed while 18 per cent said they neither know nor care what a post-Gates technology industry will be like.

One silicon.com reader wrote of Gates tenure in charge of Microsoft: "He is the result of what happens when someone with the natural gift for software development is combined with an amazing business mind.

"With the exception of the way he tried to use Windows to leverage Internet Explorer to be the only browser, I have always admired as a whole what Bill has done. Even then, I am sure most IT companies that were in the same position would do the same - look at Apple today with the iPod."

Another reader, Navin Anand, wrote: "Bill Gates has shown the world that the techie and the hard-nosed businessman can co-exist in the same brain."