UK: Goodbye Gates

"In a corner office on Microsoft's leafy, low-rise campus in suburban Seattle, a bespectacled, slightly portly middle-aged man has been packing up his belongings. Bill Gates logs off today after 33 years in day-to-day control of the world's biggest software company.

Gates, 52, is retiring in order to spend more time giving away his $58bn (£29bn) fortune. In a glossy video produced by Microsoft to mark the occasion, he expressed quiet satisfaction: "We've really achieved the ideal of what I wanted Microsoft to become."

Later today, Gates will deliver a valedictory address to the software company's 90,000 employees with his right-hand man, Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer, by his side. Staff around the world will watch via a webcast."