Bill Gates has stepped down as chief software architect at Microsoft Corp. and will slowly transition out of the company’s day-to-day work by 2008. Gates said he “will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,” officials at Redmond’s Microsoft said in a statement. He’ll remain as the company’s chairman and as adviser after June 2008. Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie has been named chief software architect and will “begin working side by side” with Gates on the Redmond company’s technical architecture “to ensure a smooth transition,” the company said.

This doesn’t have much to do with real estate, but it’s interesting that he waited until after the stock market had closed for the day to make his announcement. I wonder what effect, if any, this will have on the price of MS shares. There’s bound to be lots of chatter.

There’s still plenty of chatter and gossip about Bill’s house that he built a few years ago. When he makes his transition, will he begin to work at home? I wonder what will happen to that place once he’s gone. Will his kids keep it? Will it become a museum?

Photos of Bill’s house from the water.

Interview with Jim Cutler, the designer of Bill & Melinda’s house.

Like looking at waterfront mega-mansions? Slate’s interactive cyber-mansion tour

Bill Gate’s House Tidbits

Bill’s house from a satelite way up in the sky…..

Entertain the kids! Paper model toy of Bill’s house.