My personal opinion is that for Microsoft this is a much better solution than to hire an external CEO with an MBA and no background in software/technology. If the news are true then I wish all the luck to Mr. Nadella.
I don't think BillG would have allowed hiring someone with an MBA and no background in software/technology. He is still the majority shareholder (from what I've read) and sits on the board.
Why? My experience has been that handing the reins tech companies over to accountants or "business people" has been fair to disastrous more frequently than handing them over to tech people with some business training.
I disagree. Technology people tend to focus on the shiny, which really isn't what Microsoft needs at this point. They're just too big and they play in too many fields where they end up competing with themselves in half of the markets they play in.
After ten years of Ballmer, what Microsoft needs now is a professional manager to sort out the mess he left. They have no shortage of great technology people; what they need is someone to bring the organization to heel behind a universal vision.
Microsoft is not on the verge of great growth or in the position anymore to build "the next big thing." That ship has sailed for them, as all the people capable of building the next big thing have been run off by the ineffective management (or never hired in the first place) and work at Google or Facebook now. Microsoft is, however, at risk of losing a significant portion of their revenue should the PC industry continue its slide and start being displaced in the enterprise.
Nadella is the best choice that is available. I still hold that the best candidate out there for the job is Mark Hurd, but he apparently wasn't interested for the same reason a lot of other outside candidates weren't interested: Microsoft has an infamously poisonous corporate culture, and everyone who worked for an outside CEO would be trying to undermine him and take his job.
⚫ This spot's proving very difficult to fill. Both in terms of finding the right person, and in getting them to accept. It's been 160 days from the initial announcement of Ballmer's retirement.
⚫ Given Ballmer's long-standing deficiencies and publicly-voiced dissatisfaction with his performance, this also speaks to very poor succession planning on the part of the Board. This would be they: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/bod.aspx
⚫ Enterprise + cloud is probably a safe pick for now. It suggests a de-emphasis of consumer and mobile, and a retrenchment to core strengths, if not enduring ones.
⚫ I'm not sold that bringing in external talent solves problems that insiders can't tackle. The insiders will be well aware of strengths and weaknesses, the challenge is in acting on them given existing internal relationships and politics.
Enterprise is the high-inertia segment in Microsoft's product portfolio and the one most at risk of disruption by SaaS players. Emphasizing it makes a lot of sense.
The problem of insiders is that they may embrace the culture that brought the company to where it is now. It's not always a good thing.
I think an interesting side effect of this; his vacating of the Cloud/Enterprise role provides a natural succession up the chain for Scott Guthrie. It also gives Scott (who has more of an effect on the Microsoft dev community than any other person) a direct pipeline and solid personal relationship with the CEO.
As I said 50 days ago[1] Nadella was always the most likely internal candidate. It's a choice that makes some sense to me - he's a technologist, which I think is important (note that at some point the Ford CEO was tipped). However, his background is all in Enterprise software.
Microsoft's most successful products recently have all been in the Enterprise field, so that reflects well on him. But there have to be questions about his experience with consumer software.
Microsoft really isn't a consumer company: they make all their profit from enterprise software. Ballmer's biggest mistake was trying to convince an elephant to become a mouse. What he left was a mess that needs a lot of cleaning up. It doesn't help that he reorganized the company 6 months ago, effectively preventing his successor from making any substantial changes from the Ballmer way.
Given the number of people that were mentioned as front runners in this CEO search over the last few months, this seems to be a job that nobody outside Microsoft wants. Nadella was always the most likely internal candidate, and it really feels like they're settling on him because everyone external candidate they wanted turned them down.
All this banter about it being a bad choice or a good choice because Satya's current role is enterprise focused is just goofy. Had Elop been chosen we would not be acting as if Microsoft is only a phone company now and is abandoning the enterprise.
I think the unspoken logic here is that Microsoft is already doing great in the enterprise and poorly on devices, so hiring somebody with the same distribution of strengths and weaknesses will just exacerbate the weaknesses without helping the strengths all that much (since they're already strong there).
All the talk of needing a turn around specialist, I personally don't see it. Really, a visionary or someone who can actually come up with a constructive, actionable plan that grows market share (in realm of focus) and revenues makes sense to me. I would like someone less steeped in the monoculture that is Redmond, but Satya will be a solid choice. Tony Bates would be my preference for "internal candidate".
Of course these are just my personal opinions.
If Bill Gates is removed as Chairman that will be a major change.
As a former NOKIAn I am sad. I want to see MS go down in flames and without Elop it's gonna be difficult. However Indians are also very talented at destroying the spirit of their own companies and alienating their users (see Harman or Adobe) so there is a hope...
The selection of an internal post IPO candidate makes the most cultural sense. If Sinofsky had not incurred a billion dollar fine by failing to include browser choice in the EU version of Windows 8, it might have been him.
Amid suspicions that Microsoft is having trouble finding the perfect person to fill this role, Satya makes sense. I've always thought of him as an incredibly talented administrator rather than a brilliant general. He's a known person within Microsoft who can be a caretaker for the organization while the hunt for a CEO who can lead the next charge can continue.
It's a bit of a poisoned chalice for someone outside of Microsoft as if Gates and Balmer remain on the board as any new CEO will be continually undermined by people "going to Bill/Steve". To appointment someone from inside Microsoft is simply rearranging the deck chairs.
Best thing for Microsoft would be to hire an outsider who will come in with an unbiased eye and clear out the deadwood to give new growth a chance or to milk the cash cows to their inevitable conclusions. To be able to do this you need Bill and Steve and their old guard out of the way.
MSFT's power and potential is in everything enterprise and Nadella understands this (or rather passionate about this) universe from top to bottom better than any other candidate.
Big mistake IMO. I can't imagine Satya "the enterprise guy" being CEO of the devices company (he's probably qualified to be CEO for the "services" part of Microsoft). I'm wondering if him and Elop would work as co-CEOs, but history shows that's not a good idea either.
Satya is no Steve Jobs or Larry Page. He is typical corporate ladder climber who took 22 years in the company to get to where he is. Before you credit with all the profits in server & tools, make a note that he was in Bing and did not had any major impact in direction or turnaround. Microsoft divisions are setup in such a way that if you put a monkey on the top (or even Steve Ballmer, for that matter) for a year or two, it will still make same amount of profits because of licensing deals. Satya also hasn't brought anything dramatic or revolutionary in his current job. Azure is still irrelevant and Dev Tools still has little impact on Windows or vice versa.
So Satya would be your choice if you want "stability", no fear of any dramatic changes and "easy as she goes" attitude. Honestly that is the least what Microsoft needs right now. Microsoft is currently pretty much in same situation as Apple was when Steve Jobs arrived. I know, I know, I see you jumping off your chairs quoting last quarterly results and telling me it is far from bankruptcy like was Apple. But have noticed a chart of PC sales for last 3 years? Have you noticed a giant slump in Office that is only matter of time to eat away the growth in server and tools?
In any case, I really think Micosoft needs a bold bet, not someone conservative. It needs someone who would come in and say, this size of 100K employees is bullshit, who has courage to remove about 60% of crud that has been accumulated in form of MBAs, PMs, "Business Managers", GMs and their 13+ levels of hierarchy. Someone who would have balls to say managers are overhead, less important and there needs to be 30 reports per manager (instead of current 3-7). Someone who can personally deeply dive in to products and send out "30 things to fix and improve" every Friday night. Someone who will go to end of the Earth to get the best talent in industry. Someone who insist on best customer experience and signs off his/her name on each product release saying that he personally has tested and used every customer facing aspect of the product and is happy with it. Someone who would never let crapeware like Windows 8 get through the door. Someone who insist on same OS for Phone and Tablets. Someone who would not hesitate to move org charts if things don't work out as intended.
As far as I'm aware Satya is neither of these. He is your regular MBA with tech experience who can keep the ship steady in good weather.
That's disappointing. I was really hoping that it would be someone external to the company who would be visionary enough to take them to new heights. Instead, they're picking the safe, enterprise bet, who won't change things too much.
I would say Microsoft's consumer facing days are numbered.
As a Microsoft Developer, I don't want a Microsoft with new vision. I want a Microsoft that will continue to build a great platform to build business applications on.
We moved away from WPF after Windows 8. We gravitated towards ASP.NET MVC, but increasingly started using Angular JS.
While I love these new javascript libs, I miss the great tool set that Microsoft always provided. Without that, I think we can eventually move completely off Microsoft without looking back.
His twitter seems to suggest he really is into keeping up with the latest trends. https://twitter.com/satyanadella The article states there was a 5 month search. I'm glad they are hiring within the ranks.
On topic:
I do not think this guy (or any CEO) of Microsoft is going to be able drive Microsoft in any true sense of the word. Gates is not going anywhere.
Off topic:
I might be the only one who came in here excitedly expecting to see a Female CEO of Microsoft. Kind of disappointed when I saw the picture and it's just another balding dude.
No I'm not female or a feminist, just kind of excited for drastic progressive change that I personally favor (I think more girls should be in tech, especially in leadership)
This won't end well. Microsoft is a bubble with an echo-chamber internally. Their employees are in the 1990s era, which is making DVD application software (Word, etc.). The problem is that they still think that way. Senior managers are from the 1990s. Or they hired from colleges and sheep dipped people in the same thinking. People from startups and industry don't last long there, and definitely don't rise in management.
The reason startup or industry people don't rise in Microsoft is that they are rejected as not matching the 1990s way of doing things.
Examples: Their UI innovation was in WPF because someone forgot to tell them that UI dev now happens on web pages and iPhone. Hotmail is a joke. MSN is a joke. Web hosted office 365 is a joke. Exchange web UI and client main usage is for 1990s customers and not 2010 customers. C# is charging in the opposite direction of the entire webapp industry's development platforms. (aka, they were late to MVC, Hadoop, Linux server hosting, etc.) They push Windows OS lock-in to win (but that fails).
The right leader comes from Silicon Valley in a startup gone big. That right leader will then replace many of the other leaders in MSFT with Silicon Valley highly strategic leaders. When the CEO is a Microsoft person, they will keep the same Microsoft 1990s style internal leaders and nothing will change in the category of what needs to change.
C# is charging in the opposite direction of the entire webapp industry's development platforms.
I'm not sure if you're confused or I'm confused. C# is a programming language. What exactly about C# is "in the opposite direction of the entire webapp industry's development platforms"?
Have any examples of a startup leader taking over a large, mature company and doing well? Seems like the skill sets of driving a race car don't necessarily transfer well to locomotives.
People who thrive at building a startup often are not particularly successful taking over a mature business. Meg Whitman comes to mind, though HP has its own world of hurt.
I like all of your thoughts except that the leader has to come from a Silicon Valley startup gone big.
I just don't agree. There's too much risk of a culture clash. At the altitude that MS flies- you need someone who knows how to pilot gargantuan ships. I'd way rather see someone from a fortune 50 company take the reigns.
There's a huge difference between developing a horse to be an olympic competitor and riding a horse to multiple championships.
The biggest priority for new CEO is to get the two major divisions OS and Devs on the same page instead of bickering and reinventing the UI several times over from other groups. Secondly, he needs to put focus on UI design and usability instead of having engineering lead the way.
From one former Milwaukeean to another, I hope this kicks more recruiters to the area. With three major universities in the city, there was a dismal number of national recruiters dropping by when I lived there (about a decade ago now, maybe things are different).
I grew up in the Milwaukee area, but eventually moved to Boston. I think it produces a decent amount of talent (my school had a great technical program) but there's not a lot of interesting employers there.
I grew up in Milwaukee and (in 2002) applied only to California universities because I thought the tech industry/opportunities out there were much more substantial, and I'd have a leg up on professional networking. Has worked out well. YMMV
[+] [-] jedmeyers|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dm8|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zdw|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Touche|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exelius|12 years ago|reply
After ten years of Ballmer, what Microsoft needs now is a professional manager to sort out the mess he left. They have no shortage of great technology people; what they need is someone to bring the organization to heel behind a universal vision.
Microsoft is not on the verge of great growth or in the position anymore to build "the next big thing." That ship has sailed for them, as all the people capable of building the next big thing have been run off by the ineffective management (or never hired in the first place) and work at Google or Facebook now. Microsoft is, however, at risk of losing a significant portion of their revenue should the PC industry continue its slide and start being displaced in the enterprise.
Nadella is the best choice that is available. I still hold that the best candidate out there for the job is Mark Hurd, but he apparently wasn't interested for the same reason a lot of other outside candidates weren't interested: Microsoft has an infamously poisonous corporate culture, and everyone who worked for an outside CEO would be trying to undermine him and take his job.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kamaal|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredmorbius|12 years ago|reply
⚫ This spot's proving very difficult to fill. Both in terms of finding the right person, and in getting them to accept. It's been 160 days from the initial announcement of Ballmer's retirement.
⚫ Given Ballmer's long-standing deficiencies and publicly-voiced dissatisfaction with his performance, this also speaks to very poor succession planning on the part of the Board. This would be they: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/bod.aspx
⚫ Enterprise + cloud is probably a safe pick for now. It suggests a de-emphasis of consumer and mobile, and a retrenchment to core strengths, if not enduring ones.
⚫ I'm not sold that bringing in external talent solves problems that insiders can't tackle. The insiders will be well aware of strengths and weaknesses, the challenge is in acting on them given existing internal relationships and politics.
[+] [-] rbanffy|12 years ago|reply
The problem of insiders is that they may embrace the culture that brought the company to where it is now. It's not always a good thing.
[+] [-] keithwarren|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abuqutaita|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nl|12 years ago|reply
Microsoft's most successful products recently have all been in the Enterprise field, so that reflects well on him. But there have to be questions about his experience with consumer software.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6871957
[+] [-] exelius|12 years ago|reply
Given the number of people that were mentioned as front runners in this CEO search over the last few months, this seems to be a job that nobody outside Microsoft wants. Nadella was always the most likely internal candidate, and it really feels like they're settling on him because everyone external candidate they wanted turned them down.
[+] [-] keithwarren|12 years ago|reply
All this banter about it being a bad choice or a good choice because Satya's current role is enterprise focused is just goofy. Had Elop been chosen we would not be acting as if Microsoft is only a phone company now and is abandoning the enterprise.
[+] [-] chc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmspring|12 years ago|reply
Of course these are just my personal opinions.
If Bill Gates is removed as Chairman that will be a major change.
[+] [-] sirkneeland|12 years ago|reply
I know this one is.
[+] [-] rbanffy|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nokia_chi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DunbarTrout|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brudgers|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] katherat|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spiralpolitik|12 years ago|reply
Best thing for Microsoft would be to hire an outsider who will come in with an unbiased eye and clear out the deadwood to give new growth a chance or to milk the cash cows to their inevitable conclusions. To be able to do this you need Bill and Steve and their old guard out of the way.
[+] [-] gesman|12 years ago|reply
MSFT's power and potential is in everything enterprise and Nadella understands this (or rather passionate about this) universe from top to bottom better than any other candidate.
[+] [-] shanselman|12 years ago|reply
Note: He's my boss, 4 bosses up.
[+] [-] amaks|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] graving|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] computerslol|12 years ago|reply
I'm glad it's a tech guy.
[+] [-] sytelus|12 years ago|reply
So Satya would be your choice if you want "stability", no fear of any dramatic changes and "easy as she goes" attitude. Honestly that is the least what Microsoft needs right now. Microsoft is currently pretty much in same situation as Apple was when Steve Jobs arrived. I know, I know, I see you jumping off your chairs quoting last quarterly results and telling me it is far from bankruptcy like was Apple. But have noticed a chart of PC sales for last 3 years? Have you noticed a giant slump in Office that is only matter of time to eat away the growth in server and tools?
In any case, I really think Micosoft needs a bold bet, not someone conservative. It needs someone who would come in and say, this size of 100K employees is bullshit, who has courage to remove about 60% of crud that has been accumulated in form of MBAs, PMs, "Business Managers", GMs and their 13+ levels of hierarchy. Someone who would have balls to say managers are overhead, less important and there needs to be 30 reports per manager (instead of current 3-7). Someone who can personally deeply dive in to products and send out "30 things to fix and improve" every Friday night. Someone who will go to end of the Earth to get the best talent in industry. Someone who insist on best customer experience and signs off his/her name on each product release saying that he personally has tested and used every customer facing aspect of the product and is happy with it. Someone who would never let crapeware like Windows 8 get through the door. Someone who insist on same OS for Phone and Tablets. Someone who would not hesitate to move org charts if things don't work out as intended.
As far as I'm aware Satya is neither of these. He is your regular MBA with tech experience who can keep the ship steady in good weather.
[+] [-] owenwil|12 years ago|reply
I would say Microsoft's consumer facing days are numbered.
[+] [-] swalsh|12 years ago|reply
We moved away from WPF after Windows 8. We gravitated towards ASP.NET MVC, but increasingly started using Angular JS.
While I love these new javascript libs, I miss the great tool set that Microsoft always provided. Without that, I think we can eventually move completely off Microsoft without looking back.
[+] [-] angersock|12 years ago|reply
It's like bitching that Walmart hasn't cornered Starbucks. Jesus.
[+] [-] barce|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alienfluid|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hardwaresofton|12 years ago|reply
Off topic: I might be the only one who came in here excitedly expecting to see a Female CEO of Microsoft. Kind of disappointed when I saw the picture and it's just another balding dude.
No I'm not female or a feminist, just kind of excited for drastic progressive change that I personally favor (I think more girls should be in tech, especially in leadership)
[+] [-] umeshunni|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HashThis|12 years ago|reply
The reason startup or industry people don't rise in Microsoft is that they are rejected as not matching the 1990s way of doing things.
Examples: Their UI innovation was in WPF because someone forgot to tell them that UI dev now happens on web pages and iPhone. Hotmail is a joke. MSN is a joke. Web hosted office 365 is a joke. Exchange web UI and client main usage is for 1990s customers and not 2010 customers. C# is charging in the opposite direction of the entire webapp industry's development platforms. (aka, they were late to MVC, Hadoop, Linux server hosting, etc.) They push Windows OS lock-in to win (but that fails).
The right leader comes from Silicon Valley in a startup gone big. That right leader will then replace many of the other leaders in MSFT with Silicon Valley highly strategic leaders. When the CEO is a Microsoft person, they will keep the same Microsoft 1990s style internal leaders and nothing will change in the category of what needs to change.
[+] [-] Locke1689|12 years ago|reply
I'm not sure if you're confused or I'm confused. C# is a programming language. What exactly about C# is "in the opposite direction of the entire webapp industry's development platforms"?
[+] [-] kbutler|12 years ago|reply
People who thrive at building a startup often are not particularly successful taking over a mature business. Meg Whitman comes to mind, though HP has its own world of hurt.
[+] [-] droopybuns|12 years ago|reply
I just don't agree. There's too much risk of a culture clash. At the altitude that MS flies- you need someone who knows how to pilot gargantuan ships. I'd way rather see someone from a fortune 50 company take the reigns.
There's a huge difference between developing a horse to be an olympic competitor and riding a horse to multiple championships.
[+] [-] pnathan|12 years ago|reply
It's something to consider when thinking about this possibility.
[+] [-] ct|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonhohle|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swalsh|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billpaetzke|12 years ago|reply