After weeks of speculation, Tuesday 5 February saw
Microsoft name 46-year-old Satya Nadella as its new CEO. Mr. Nadella becomes only the third CEO in the corporation’s history. He replaces Steve Ballmer who announced he would step down from the position in late 2013, although Bills Gates recently temporarily resumed the CEO position, which he held before Mr. Ballmer. A Microsoft staffer, Indian-born Nadella is set to focus on Microsoft’s cloud and mobile activity. He joined Microsoft in 1992.
News of the engagement did not excite the stock market, however. Shares went down 13 cents to $36.35.
Mr. Nadella had been in charge of Microsoft’s cloud computing unit that allows customers to store data and run applications in the cloud. The Corporation’s cloud enterprise group doubled the number of customers it caters to in the last quarter. He has requested that Bill Gates, the company’s original CEO, act as his advisor. Mr. Gates has resigned from his position as the corporation’s chairman to facilitate this request and will now devote a proportion of his time to Microsoft’s products and technology. Bill Gates remains on the corporation’s board while John Thompson becomes its new Chairman.
Mr. Nadella’s placement comes at a time when the traditional software model that Microsoft founded its empire on has shifted to the cloud. His goal will be to compete with the cloud and mobile infrastructures that have been successfully developed by Amazon Web Services (AWS), Apple and Google. In addition, he will continue Microsoft’s transition to providing cloud-based software services like Office 365 and be responsible for completing the corporations Nokia phone business and patents purchase. He will also be in charge of growing the footprint of Windows Phone software.
“During this time of transformation, there is no better person to lead Microsoft than Satya Nadella,” explained Founder Bill Gates in a press release. “Satya is a proven leader with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together. His vision for how technology will be used and experienced around the world is exactly what Microsoft needs as the company enters its next chapter of expanded product innovation and growth.”
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