| Sumario: | The article comments on Microsoft's decision to give back to its shareholders, in various forms, an unprecedented $75 billion. Microsoft, which grew into the world's largest software company through the dominance of Windows, its computer-operating system, has been generating cash at the rate of one billion dollars a month. The decision is impressive for the mature analysis by Microsoft of its role in its industry and the prospects for the future that it implies. Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and main owner and Steve Ballmer, the chief executive, could have acted differently. One option was to become ever more aggressive empire-builders, as so many bosses do, and make huge acquisitions. Gates and Ballmer could also have chosen to put their money back into research and innovation. Of course there are strategic threats facing Microsoft--open-source software and Google's superior search technology, in particular--but when Ballmer sent an e-mail to employees recently, it was about cost-cutting.
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