There is something sad about the fact that, when a man who has played a pivotal role in shaping the way the developed world lives and works announces he is hanging up his executive boots, the knee jerk response is "oh, yeah?" The immediate assumption is that Bill Gates' move from chief executive officer at Microsoft to the freshly-fashioned post of chief software architect has something to do with the anti-trust case and splitting the company into two or three, or the competi tive threat posed by the transposition of the internet into the wireless world, or both at the same time. The debate is about who or what this company is planning to crush, rather than the moment being used to reflect on what Mr Gates and his colleagues have created so far.

So what is the man up to? There is no evidence that he is attempting to do anything out of the ordinary. Mr Gates wants to see off all possible threats to Microsoft's existing business and become a leader (or even dominate) every other sector it feels it can attack successfully.

Leaving the anti-trust case aside, Microsoft is facing substantial competition, certainly the biggest threat since Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen created the Netscape web browser five years ago and added a fourth dimension to desktop computing.

On that occasion Microsoft's response was two-pronged. On the one hand, Mr Gates moved back into the software lab and marshalled the creation of a rival product, Internet Explorer. And at the same time (it was alleged during the Department of Justice hearings) Microsoft executives flew down to see Netscape and threatened to flatten the company unless Microsoft was allowed to buy a piece of the action.

So Mr Gates is now back in the lab to oversee what is being slated as Next Generation Windows Services. Microsoft is losing its grip in the operating system market and is also in serious danger of failing to get a handle on the computing at the heart of the new wave of mobile applications. It has to respond.

Although, this time around, we can safely assume that the temptation to send corporate heavies simultaneously flying round the world threatening to flatten someone has been avoided. Microsoft is, after all, still awaiting sentencing at the hands of the American state.

Unsurprisingly, the company does not want to be broken up and Steven Ballmer, Mr Gates's successor at the helm, is still labelling any attempt to do so as "absolutely reckless and irresponsible". But its attempts to avoid this have, to date, amounted to little more than a few bits of crass PR involving the Gates charitable foundation and a few software-tools-for-schools initiatives.

Microsoft and its founder are missing the obvious trick. A break-up should be welcomed and willingly instigated by the company. Then Mr Gates really could step back into the lab and leave others to recount a great source of good.