Microsoft Investors Reportedly Want Board to Drop Gates

Some Microsoft investors reportedly want to clean house entirely in Redmond, and are recommending that Bill Gates be removed as chairman of the company he co-founded.

As reported by Reuters, three top Microsoft investors are pushing the company's board to get Gates to step down. The unnamed investors own about 5 percent of Microsoft, the news service said. Gates owns about 4.5 percent and is its largest individual shareholder.

The proposal is just that; there's no evidence to suggest the board will actually take these shareholders up on their demands, Reuters said.

The move comes as Microsoft is on the hunt for a new CEO, who will replace the outgoing Steve Ballmer. Gates sits on the special selection committee spearheading the effort to find Ballmer's replacement, alongside John Thompson, the board's lead independent director, audit committee chairman Chuck Noski, and compensation committee chairman Steve Luczo.

According to Reuters, the investors are concerned that Gates will hinder an overhaul of Microsoft that is necessary to turn around its struggling business units, like Windows Phone and the Surface. Microsoft, however, is pursuing at least an organizational shakeup; Ballmer revealed the "One Microsoft" strategy shortly before it was announced he would step down.

Gates retired from day-to-day Microsoft activities in 2008 in order to pursue philanthropic efforts. He remains chairman of Microsoft, but focuses much of his activities on efforts to eradicate diseases like malaria.

According to the BBC, meanwhile, Microsoft will return to next year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) after sitting it out in 2013. For years, Microsoft opened CES with a keynote that drew big crowds, but in recent years, it has released major products - like Windows 8 - in the October timeframe, meaning it had little to announce come January. As a result, Redmond was nowhere to be found in Vegas earlier this year.

For more, check out some possible Ballmer replacements in the slideshow above. Recent rumors suggest that Ford chief Alan Mulally might also be a frontrunner, but no announcements have been made.