Maybe it's time for Bill Gates to come back, they say

Aug 24, 2013 14:41 GMT  ·  By

Steve Ballmer will leave Microsoft at some point in the next 12 months when the board finds a new CEO, but the name of the successor is yet to be disclosed. In fact, Microsoft is now in talks with both internal and external candidates, so nobody knows who's actually going to take over the CEO seat.

But there's one name that makes everyone dream about a reinvented Microsoft focused on the consumer and not necessarily struggling so much in the hardware industry.

Bill Gates is still seen as the one who could save the company on the short-term, even though the Microsoft co-founder said several times that he had no intention to return in a full-time job.

Analysts, on the other hand, think that Gates should come back at least temporarily until the board finds a new CEO that could help the company get back on track.

“Maybe it's time for Bill Gates to come back on a temporary basis,” Jack Gold, a tech analyst at Gold Associates, said in an interview with USA Today.

At the same time, Gold explained that Microsoft could even look in Google's yard, as the search company has many executives that could help the tech giant pick the right direction to success.

“They need a proven innovator with a track record of turning around big, sometimes unwieldy companies,” Gold explained.

Bill Gates, on the other hand, has no intention to return, so he's now one of the members of the new committee in charge of finding a new CEO.

“As a member of the succession planning committee, I’ll work closely with the other members of the board to identify a great new CEO,” said Gates in a press statement released yesterday. “We’re fortunate to have Steve in his role until the new CEO assumes these duties.”