Microsoft's co-founders are beginning to weigh in on the company's strategy and the succession plan for CEO Steve Ballmer.

Bill Gates, who remains Microsoft chairman, told the Financial Times that he plans to spend considerable time working with the next CEO. It's not clear from the interview whether Microsoft's board has asked Gates to help break in the next CEO.

A spokesman for Gates didn't respond to a request for comment.

Gates also said he's spending much more time on Microsoft business than the one day a week he planned when he stopped working there full time in 2008. The disclosures highlight Gates' continued influence as Microsoft prepares for its first chief without ties to the company's founding.

Also in the Financial Times in recent days, the head of Paul Allen's investment firm was quoted saying Microsoft's next CEO should consider spinning off the company's consumer businesses, such as the Bing online-search engine and videogame unit Xbox.

"My view is there are some parts of that operation they should probably spin out, get rid of, to focus on the enterprise and focus on the cloud," Paul Ghaffari, the head of Allen's Vulcan Capital, said at a New York event.

Several investors share those views, but Microsoft has said its businesses work better together than separate.

Ghaffari also said that if Microsoft selects a CEO without experience in the tech industry, the company should consider pairing him or her with a tech-oriented executive. That's become an issue since Ford CEO Alan Mulally emerged as a contender for the Microsoft CEO job.

Ghaffari's comments are noteworthy in part because Allen doesn't say much publicly about Microsoft, the company he founded with Gates. The day Ballmer announced his retirement as CEO, Allen issued statement saying he looked forward to a "fresh approach" at Microsoft.

A spokesman for Microsoft declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Vulcan didn't respond to a request for comment.