Bill Gates decided yesterday to hang up his hat at Microsoft. He plans to remain a senior advisor to the company, but come 2008, he is more or less hands off.

Billy boy is the architect of the software and arguably the entire computer industry. He found a way to convince a lot of people to buy, use, love and need his products. For as long as I can remember, Billy has caught a lot of slack for flexing his strategic muscles. We all have a lot to learn from this Harvard University drop out – including knowing when to step to the side and let someone else take over. Gates has been having a hard time finding a way to hedge the competition he is getting from other software titans cannibalizing his market share. Microsoft has battalions of geeks lined up to help it remain competitive in an environment where they are not the best player and good software is free.

Bill plans to take a more active strategic role in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation focuses on contributing money for health programs in developing countries and education in the United States.

I can’t wait to see him flex his strategy muscles again. This time, his strategy will be centered on distributing vaccines, not software.