Much has been written about Bill and recent articles have asked if Ray Ozzie is up for taking over the helm as the technology visionary at Microsoft. Time will tell.

One often under reported event that happened at Microsoft last year was the near simultaneous departure of Jeff Raikes, who ran the highly successful Microsoft Office franchise. Jeff is not going far, since he will now be running the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as its CEO. Jeff was a true leader at Microsoft and I’m sure he is missed. 

Apple has an internationally known celebrity in Steve Jobs. He is the rock star and Apple’s stock price moves with news on his health. However, there are a bevy of competent executives that have been with him at Apple for many years. They don’t get the exposure, but they sure have delivered some great products lately.

Fast forward to today and you wonder which firm has done more innovation. iTunes was ingenious for what it did for music distribution and the iPods and now the iTouch and iPhone have set standards for design that many are trying to match. Microsoft has many successes to point to, the latest being its growing SharePoint business.

Both firms have had challenges to deal with over the years. Innovation is one area that is a constant challenge to firms that are no longer start-ups. That is the challenge for Apple and Microsoft: making sure that they don’t miss the next big shift in technology. Being a publicly traded company doesn’t make it any easier, as the pressure of delivering the numbers often may force a decision to be made on an investment that later might be regretted. In fact, today’s Wall Street Journal chronicles Microsoft’s misses in Search. 

The bottom line is that Apple and Microsoft will continue onward and upward with or without their founders. No matter who is at the helm, matching growth rates of yesteryear will be a formidable challenge at both companies.