Everybody seems to want to say goodbye as Bill Gates officially retires from Microsoft.

Over the past 20-plus years, many of my contemporaries have compared themselves to Mr. Gates and asked why he was so much more successful than they were. Coming out into the work force in the late '70s or early '80s, they joined the technology industry, some with Ivy League educations deeper than Mr. Gates' short tenure at Harvard. But they didn't have the same impact as Mr. Gates. They simply were overmatched in vision by the man who started the company that has offered us DOS, Windows and MS-Office to name a few of his successes.

Perhaps he had a bit of luck, too -- something that is underrated in business. He was in the right place when IBM needed an operating system for its fledgling PC. But the luck of being there is overshadowed by the assertive manner in which he took advantage of the opportunity. How many others would have recognized that building the operating system for the IBM PC also could launch a separate operating system business in a then-nonexisting market? And how many would have the chutzpah to ask for the concurrent rights to market the software being funded by IBM?

Although Bill Gates, 52, is retiring from full-time duty at Microsoft, he's not leaving us. He's had his impact as 95 percent of us see on our desktops every day.

His biggest, most important impact on the world is actually the thing that his detractors hate the most -- the ubiquity of Microsoft products.

Without that single platform running 95 percent of the world's desktops, we wouldn't have the great wealth of computing choices we have today. Ubiquity makes it easier for programmers to make money by creating their products once -- for a single operating system. It makes it easier to train our workers, because they need to learn only one set of controls. And it makes it easier to plan for the future.

Mr. Gates will undoubtedly have even more impact on the world as he pays full attention to the foundation created by him and his wife. And his effect on worldwide issues will likely have similar impact as his previous efforts had on business.

So don't say, "Goodbye." Say, "What's next, Bill?"