Now that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates officially has begun decoupling himself from the company he founded 31 years ago, it seems like a great time to ask what the Microsoft of the future – sans BillG – will look like.

Will Microsoft still be Microsoft without Gates? Or will it be as lame as Apple Computer without Steve Jobs, the Trump Organization without the Donald, or Martha Stewart Living without the queen of perfectly folded napkins?

Sure, Gates is planning to stay on as chairman, though not chief software architect, starting in 2008. Without its competitive, hard-core leader involved in daily decisions, will Microsoft still be the bold and brash company that forced competitors out of business; incurred the wrath of government investigators worldwide; and earned the nickname "The Evil Empire"?

I say it won't.

I think Microsoft is going to morph into a very different place, as Gates begins passing the torch to his newly appointed brain trust of Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer, and Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect. Ozzie and Mundie, from the limited interactions I've had with them, seem to be a lot kinder and gentler leaders than Gates -- even the public-relations-schooled family man and philanthropist Gates.

And the world in which Ozzie and Mundie -- alongside CEO Steve Ballmer – will lead also is a very different one from the one in which Microsoft has been competing for the past three decades. Commanding a monopoly over desktop operating systems just won't take you as far as it used to. These days, you need to be a leader in search, in online advertising, in software-as-a-service – all areas where Microsoft is a distant third, at best.

I interviewed Gates for the first time in 1984. I was brand-new to covering technology and he was a difficult, fidgety, ornery character to interview. Everyone at Microsoft back then was part of the cult of Bill. "Bill Reviews" were seen as worse than being sent to the principal's office. He suffered no fools – whether employees or reporters or lawyers. The best Gates insult I personally remember is when the Microsoft honcho chastised one of my reporting colleagues for failing to be "the least bit technical." I miss those good old days!

Some company watchers say Microsoft already has changed a lot since Gates passed the CEO crown to Ballmer back in 2000. Some, this Microsoft Watcher among them, believed that move split the company into two factions: The MBA types (Ballmer and his protégées) and the Techno-dweebs (Gates and his gang). During some phases of the company's history, the suits seemed to be gaining in power over the pocket-protector set. But then the pendulum would swing back again, with the nerds gaining freer reign inside Microsoft.

Even though Ozzie and Mundie are both tech guys, they also are both more polished and political than Gates. I would envision an Ozzie review to be more collaborative, kind of like the Groove technology he built and sold to Microsoft last year. And Cult of Craig? I don't see that happening. If the tradition of ThinkWeeks – Gates' personal time to ruminate on new technologies – continue at Microsoft, I'm betting they'll be more like company picnics than closed, proprietary affairs.

Speaking of proprietary, I'm also wagering that under new management we could see Microsoft start thinking more about open communications, open source, open programming interfaces than it has under the BillG era. I'm not anticipating we'll see the Redmondians open-source Windows any time soon. But now that Gates -- as well as long-time Windows chief Jim Allchin, who held fast to a belief that the Web and other Internet technologies were a threat, not an opportunity -- are on their way out, I think the 2008+ Microsoft will look and operate a lot differently than it has to date.

It was inevitable that one day Gates would retire. That day is closer than it once seemed. Do you think we're about to see a whole new Microsoft 2.0? Or do you think Gates' succession plan won't mean much for Microsoft, its shareholders, customers and competitors? Talk back below or write me at mswatch@ziffdavis.com and
let me know what you think.