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By Mary-Jo Foley, 24 June 2008 16:18

COMMENT

It's not that Bill Gates has an inflated sense of his own importance. But anyone who thought there'd be a single successor for the great man would be gravely mistaken, says Mary-Jo Foley.

When Microsoft hired Ray Ozzie in 2005, Ozzie was one of three chief technology officers. In 2006 Microsoft's then-chief software architect, Bill Gates, passed the torch to Ozzie.

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But Ozzie is not Gates' sole replacement. Gates' chief software architect role is split officially between Ozzie and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer.

In a new video interview posted to Microsoft's Channel 9 website on 23 June, Gates adds a third group to the list of those who will be filling his shoes after he leaves Microsoft as a full-time employee this month.

Gates told Channel 9's Charles Torre that Microsoft's group of Technical Fellows also will be helping to fill the technology-leadership void that his departure will create.

So it seemingly takes 24 people - Ozzie, Mundie and the 22 Microsoft Technical Fellows - to fill Gates' tech shoes.

Gates told Torre that Microsoft's community of Technical Fellows are the "real experts". He said his visibility has resulted in the fellows being overshadowed. His departure will create a new "opportunity for people to see how important their work is", Gates said.

It would be interesting to hear more publicly from the typically silent group of Tech Fellows. A few have been more outspoken than others, including Windows guru Mark Russinovich and the father of C#, Anders Hejlsberg.

Here are a few of the people I'd love to get to interview on that list. Among them: