Procurement organizations all over the world use different classification standards to search, find, evaluate and contract suppliers representing a huge number of products and services.

The suppliers cope with many complex demands from buyers and authorities to specify and categorize products and services.

Diverse categorizing standards, languages, industry codes and product definitions create significant thresholds for both buyers and suppliers to find and deliver the right products and services in time.

The challenge: Create a global, cross-industry, language independent catalog solution for all suppliers and buyers for the business to business industry.

So, will Google be capable to have a huge growth in the years to come? The answer is for sure yes, they have not touched the business to business industry yet, and who could be in a better position to move in also there?

Who knows what will happen....some great companies fade away and some keep going, but few companies remain in the top spot in their sector for a decade or more so I guess Microsoft is due to slip a few places.

All I can say is happy fishing Bill. (not sure he fishes though)

Cheers,

Greg A

Microsoft has yet to say its last word. With all that cash sitting on their balance sheet and all that leverage capacity it can buy plenty of time to reinvent itself. The Yahoo bid is certainly part of that catch up process and apparently we have not yet seen the last of it.

Hope Bill can change the non profit world as he changed the IT world.

Best,

Alejandro Rogers Bozzolo

I remember when Microsoft was getting sued for its monopoly over the OS software and people never imagined it would ever be an under dog but this is slowly fading and more people are using the apple. Apple's decision to be more corporate could shift the business industry to its side. Microsoft should have a better vision in deciding what to focus on just like what you said or their cycle will not last for a long time.

"Analysts say if Microsoft forgets about trying to buy their way into search or digital music and just concentrates on what it does best — building operating systems — it can prosper."

Microsoft originally bought MS-DOS from a third party, and Windows was a copy of the Macintosh User Interface. Windows NT (and with it 2000, XP and Vista) are copies of Unix.

Microsoft being good at building operating system? Selling them, yes. Building them, no. There is no innovation here.

Take the sun for your business, when you like to live for ever ,be the sun,

Your article is very appropriately titled "Bill Gates has left the Building" and eventually so will Microsoft and rightfully so. When he sat in front of Congress lying through his teeth that the jobs he was sending to India was in an effort to attract the best and the brightest while totally
ignoring american graduates. Later, I find that he was not only attracting the low wage earners from other countries but they were hardly the brightest of the foreign workers. I hope one day Microsoft totally drops back in the toilet where it seems to be headed. He should move to India where those "brightest & best" can then appreciate what he has done for their country while turning his back on his own. I will never buy Microsoft products again. Bill Gates, U and Benedict Arnold have a lot in common!!!!

Wanda
Mississippi