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The top stories from the IT industry in June 2008

In an orchestrated farewell, Bill Gates retired from Microsoft, the company he founded in 1975, aged 19. The universal success of Windows, Internet Explorer and numerous other products not only made Gates one of the richest men in the world but defined the structure of the IT industry for over two decades. The power base he created also aroused the ire of competitors, customers and government competition watchdogs. Gates will now throw most of his energies into spending most of his wealth through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Its assets of $37.3 billion will help improve health and reduce extreme poverty in the developing world and improve high school education in the US. Gates will also remain chairman of Microsoft.

Another high-profile departure soon followed. In early July, VMware CEO and co-founder Greene was ousted from her post by the board of directors after disagreements regarding the future of the business. She is replaced by former Microsoft man Paul Maritz, head of the cloud computing division at EMC, which owns a majority stake in VMware.

The Information Commissioner’s Office hit the MoD and HMRC with enforcement notices following an investigation into two of this year’s highest-profile data losses. HMRC lost a pair of disks containing the financial details of 25 million people entitled to Child Benefit, while the MoD lost a laptop that held the details of 600,000 people. The HMRC and MoD will be fined if they fail to adopt the respective recommendations in the Poynter and Burton reports, released in June.

Barclays Bank aims to beat online fraudsters by giving its two million customers a suite of security software for free. The suite, by Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, protects online customers against spyware, adware, spam and viruses.

Mobile phone maker Nokia bought a €264 million controlling stake in mobile operating system developer Symbian, whose technology sits behind phones from Sony Ericsson, Samsung and NTT DoCoMo’s FOMA network in Japan, as well as being the base systems software for Nokia’s principal lines of mobile phone. The news comes as competition heats up in the mobile phone software market. Nokia is now expected to clash with Microsoft Windows Mobile, Apple iPhone OS and Google’s upcoming Android OS.

The UK government hired Martin Read, the former CEO of IT services giant Logica, to troubleshoot IT projects and identify wasteful spend on IT. Reporting to the Treasury, Read will standardise and simplify business processes, ensure compatibility between departmental systems and improve procurement. The Treasury added that a key change expected from Read’s review will be a willingness to abandon failing projects.