Gates Plans His Leave Amid Great Change - New York Times

Long NYT article about the division of labor among Gates, Ozzie, and Mundie 

The new, less central role for Mr. Gates was first formulated more than a year ago at a June 2006 meeting in which the three men worked out how they would divide responsibilities for guiding the technology direction of the $51 billion company, according to Mr. Ozzie, who was a longtime rival of Mr. Gates at companies like Lotus and I.B.M. before joining Microsoft two years ago.

They decided at that meeting that Mr. Mundie and Mr. Ozzie would divide Mr. Gates’s role at the company along three axes. Along one of these lines, Mr. Mundie, who has been described as Microsoft’s “secretary of state” and who is deeply involved in federal government and international policy issues, would take a more public-facing role, while Mr. Ozzie would focus more closely on internal company matters.

In another, Mr. Mundie has tackled the company’s long-range strategic decisions, while Mr. Ozzie has taken over the near-term challenges of weaving together the product development issues. Finally, Mr. Mundie has taken responsibility for software that sits closer to the computer hardware, like the Windows operating system, while Mr. Ozzie has shaped Microsoft’s response to the growing challenge of network software.

Gates Plans His Leave Amid Great Change - New York Times