Many of Microsoft's employees have started to tremble when hearing that, over the next months, the company will undergo a massive reorganization. The plan belongs to Bill Gates himself, who will reduce the number of divisions from five to three.

The announcement was made during a tour Microsoft's chief architect made in several universities. Gates' purpose was to arouse the students' interest in programming and in technology in general.

Bill Gates has shared some of his experience as leader of the company which succeeded to "bring a computer in every house" and that one of the mottos every company leader should follow is: "if you're not careful, you're lost". The statement was made when he referred to the vanishing of several companies which looked in the '70s as solid as Microsoft looks today.

Given the current IT players, the biggest enemy for Microsoft might be Google, a company nobody thought it would be able to beat giants like Yahoo and MSN, becoming the leader of the Internet searches.

Google has even announced that it intends to setup more Internet wireless networks and that it is interested in the voice communication field.

The recent alliance between Google and Sun Microsystems (ex-Microsoft partner) many analysts thought it was aimed at updating and improving the OpenOffice suite should be an important alarm signal for Bill Gates. Could this restructuring announced by Microsoft mark the beginning of a new era? It remains to be seen.