End of an era and the start of a new one?

I realise this might seem like a bit of odd post but I think its worth doing so here goes,  let the comments begin :-)

With the recent news that Bill Gates is looking to change his role within the company in 2008 and a following on from chat with a friend,  it got me thinking about my life before Microsoft, how things are different now and what the future holds.

My mum (hi mum!) reminds me once in a while that when I was about 10 or so,  while playing on the computer I said that one day I would work at Microsoft although at the time I was not sure a) what I would do there and b) how on earth I would get myself a job there.  Little did I know that 8 years later it would all start with a two month summer job at a small software company, which after a numer of related events would find me joining the graduate scheme at Microsoft four years after that. 

You would think at that point I would be over the moon,  and I was,  but as a fellow gradute of mine (David Chalmers) said,   what do we do now we have achieved one of our longterm goals?.  David Chalmers decided to move onto another challenge and it looks as if he is doing really well but I have decided to stay at Microsoft as I think there is still more for me to try and achieve here.

So,  where is all this is going?. I really enjoy working at Microsoft because I work for a company I genuinly believe do great work and more importantly get to work with a bunch of really talented and great people.  When people leave the company this tends to be one of the things they say and come to think of it it really is true!.  Most days I really look forward to going into work which means my 'bad days' can be even worse because I am used to enjoying it so much.  It's for this reason that for now I hope Microsoft goes on for many more years as I can't see myself working anywhere else currently.

Some may think this is all rather 'sad',  some may think this is rather 'odd',  I will leave you to make up your mind what you think. Is todays news the end of an era and the start of a new one? .... possibly the former and I certainly hope its the latter! ;-)