Microsoft achieves a respectable second place in today's Financial Times survey of the world's most respected companies. But curiously, the closer the respondents come to the company, the worse Microsoft seems to do. According to the survey, which was carried out by Price Waterhouse Coopers, Microsoft scored half the votes of top-placed General Electric. Third place Coca Cola got half as many votes as Microsoft, while IBM in fourth got half as many as Coca Cola. If only the views of US CEOs (major Microsoft customers?) are taken into account, then Microsoft only gets half the votes of GE, and is less respected than Toyota, while in the electrical/IT/telecoms sector globally it comes eighth, with GE, IBM, HP, Matsushita, BT, Emerson Electric and Ericsson all beating it. His Billness can, however, take some comfort from being the second most-respected business leader (number one is, of course, Jack Welch of GE). Gates is trailed by Jurgen Schrempp of Daimler-Benz, Lou Gerstner and then Andy Grove. ®