It has been revealed by numerous sources that Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft, yes, that Microsoft, will give up his main day-to-day job as chief software architect by 2008.

He is giving up to focus more on his charity work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“The change we’re announcing today is not a retirement - it’s a re-ordering of my priorities…” Bill Gates

The people that will take over the main job will be Microsoft’s chief technical officer, Ray Ozzie, who will become chief software architect.

Apparently, this is an expected ‘re-ordering of priorites’ that Mr Gates has been looking at for some time, and it won’t take effect immediately either. By July 2008, Gates will no longer be head of software development, so presumably that should give him enough time to see Vista, Office 2007 and Longhorn Server (probably Windows Server 2007) through.

Read the official press release here.

Update: Huw here. There’s also now a Channel 9 audition with Ballmer and Gates here.