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Microsoft Businesses

Reports Say Satya Nadella Is Microsoft's Next CEO 177

Nerval's Lobster writes "Microsoft's next CEO will be Satya Nadella, if current reports prove accurate. According to Re/code, which drew its information from "numerous sources close to Microsoft," Nadella could officially assume the role in early February. Meanwhile, anonymous sources speaking to Bloomberg suggested that co-founder Bill Gates could be forced to give up his longtime chairman role. Nadella (again, if confirmed) seems a logical choice for Microsoft. He's been with the company for more than twenty years, eventually becoming executive vice president of its Cloud and Enterprise division. The enterprise remains a key—perhaps the key — customer segment for Microsoft, especially as its mobile and consumer efforts (excluding the Xbox) have floundered in recent years; in order to retain those business clients, Nadella and his team embarked on the creation of 'Cloud OS,' the platform that powers Microsoft's large-scale cloud services such as SkyDrive, Azure, and Office 365. Under his guidance, Microsoft's revenue from cloud services has grown by several billion over the past few years, so he's shown that he can expand a business. In addition, his technical background could afford him a measure of respect from Microsoft's legions of engineers and developers. But if he's ultimately tapped for the CEO seat, Nadella faces one of the toughest jobs in the technology industry: not only does he need to craft a plan that will allow Microsoft to grow and prosper in an integrated, holistic manner—he'll need to do it while guiding the company through the massive internal reorganization initiated by his predecessor, Steve Ballmer."
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Reports Say Satya Nadella Is Microsoft's Next CEO

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  • by etash ( 1907284 ) on Friday January 31, 2014 @07:02PM (#46124871)
    let B.G. become CEO again. founders are a better choice (as a rule, which means it also has exceptions ofc)
    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by xfizik ( 3491039 )
      I think he's too busy designing ultra-thin condoms for Africa - a way more important job in the grand scheme of things for humanity.
    • Could the second coming of Bill Gates be as monumentally transformative for MS as the second coming of Steve Jobs was for Apple? Or would it epically fail like most of Gates's attempts to be like Jobs? I doubt Gates would want to take that risk.

      • by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Saturday February 01, 2014 @12:42AM (#46126489) Journal

        Could the second coming of Bill Gates be as monumentally transformative for MS as the second coming of Steve Jobs was for Apple? Or would it epically fail like most of Gates's attempts to be like Jobs? I doubt Gates would want to take that risk.

        Why funny you should ask that.

        As I will be the second in command I look forward to exciting times at Microsoft!

        First things first yes I am better and my ego needs to be fed. I will do so by executing the following. Back in the good old days things worked best when I made them as proprietary as possible. I started making Xenix as non compatible as possible with Unix so the users can blame all the other unix vendors and programmers rather than me. I also had pure joy almost to an orgasmic sense with IE and using Word and Excel file formats as well to make them not work with anything else.

        Balmer fucked up! First off IE works too well with standards recently. Before we know it we will have the communist and socialist unAmerican elements of the W3C tell us how to develop web pages!! Full alarm! Windows 7 just works and besides the gui in Windows 8 it is light and fast and can run on even a crappy ARM qualcomm very efficiently :-(

        The next phase will introduce the following:
        1. Documents will overwrite by default with autosave after each character. Grandma will appreciate this and we want to make this easy
        2. No desktop. Multitasking is sooo 1990s. Multitasking in Metro will mean you need to go full screen and lose whatever you have in front of you and go closed door syndrome after ribbon. Since users only do one task at a time we will make Windows 9 have buttons where each ribbon should be and using rote memory will take up the whole screen and cover the document for each option etc.
        3. IE will need to invent their own standards and stop supporting conditional statements for different browsers. :-( Webmasters how dare you write for other browsers! If you only wrote to our own DRM specificed CSS and XML (html is too opened) completed with binary encodings you will not have this problem. Webmasters you have a chose. 90% of all desktop users or socialist freeware browsers? I think you know which one you will choose. ... and they tell me people use this foxfire thingie since I left CEO?!
        4. Make word documents and our new language which is called C++ but will be totally different to encourage high cost and rewrites for porting mac and linux apps (sucks to be them hahah) used to make xml with binary encodings for internet pages. I mean executing code as administrator on all sites from God knows whom?? What could possible go wrong!!!
        5. Man Windows was such as fine elegantly engineered and gorgeous product compared to the Mac back in the 1980s I could not possible see why no one would want to switch to this. I mean look at marketshare. I am sure the same truths hold sway today as people are gobling up Windows Phones and tablets because the brand is so well known.
        6. Windows 9 certification will require signed operating systems and DRM executables to run. I can permit Linux apps if they are signed with the Windows Store and run as an applet in the new Metro 2.0 interface with HyperV. All the geeks on slashdot will be cheering and moaning my name for this. Just you see.

        Thanks for your interest.

    • he doesn't know anything about modern computing. He can't even demo his own products successfully, which shows he just doesn't give a damn. He was good at "business" of beating up other companies and Canoodling government and enterprise bosses.

      He's also spend decades selling down to only a few percent of Microsoft ownership. He's still the "biggest" owner but not by much. He needs to "go away" and let the company do it's thing. His time is past. He should have got his nose out a decade ago and allowed Bal

  • by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Friday January 31, 2014 @07:05PM (#46124893)
    If he brings back the start button.
    • Since enterprise support was a major part of his division (certainly much more profitable than the fledgling cloud services) perhaps he will. Enterprises, of course, are not at all thrilled with Win8/Metro.

      • by neminem ( 561346 )

        That would be pretty cool. Maybe then he'd also lobby for bringing back the non-retarded search interface from Win2k (that was available by a registry tweak in XP, byt not since).

        • by Zynder ( 2773551 )
          I don't search much and it's been awhile since I fired up XP. Could you elaborate on what you mean regarding the "non-retarded" search function? As I recall it had a pop out side bar with Clippy reincarnated as a dog. It asked you dumb things and had the options in the list that were useless so you always had to click the Advanced Search link. I can't even remember what W2K looks like anymore so I've no idea what its search did.
          • by Anonymous Coward

            It was sort of like that, except all the advanced options were just available to start with, and there was no clippy. You could just pick exactly what you wanted to search for and type it in, and it would search. Also it didn't look like a cartoon. But what it *did* do was search exactly what you would expect it to, and not your whole computer and only certain file types unless you waited for the search to complete and then override it with "yes I *do* know what I'm doing, I'm not an idiot". (XP search beha

        • That would be pretty cool. Maybe then he'd also lobby for bringing back the non-retarded search interface from Win2k (that was available by a registry tweak in XP, byt not since).

          You mean like hitting the Windows Key and typing whatever you want while the results come back instantly without that annoying dog diggings and taking a crap while c:\ is slowly indexed each and every time?

    • by gigaherz ( 2653757 ) on Friday January 31, 2014 @07:21PM (#46125005)
      ... the start button has been in 8.1 since it was released some months ago. I'd prefer if he brought back also the start MENU, and Aero. My computer is not a tablet, it does not need features designed for touch-screen, or removed to "improve battery life", so I will not install an OS that treats it like one.
    • Possibly Nadella could bring interesting novelties at MS, thanks to his former position at Sun MS (Microsystems), his cloud work at MS and his Tim Cook look. That seems to be a wise choice.
    • Actually, the most important he needs to do . . . is to toss out all the Ballmer "yes-men" executives. I have the feeling that Ballmer will still try to micromanage Microsoft from the outside . . . even though he will no longer be the CEO.

      He still will be an influential voice on the Microsoft board of directors, or is he leaving the board . . . ?

    • If he brings back the start button.

      So he doesn't have to do anything? The Start Button is already back in Windows 8.1.

  • Who cares? I'm more interested in the rumors that they are scheming to oust Bill Gates as Chairman...
    • by Zynder ( 2773551 )
      Sounds like the plot for a new reality TV show: Rascals of Redmond TONIGHT on A&E!
    • by lgw ( 121541 )

      I can't believe that Bill gates would lose that job against his will (he might be ready to focus fully on his charity, though). He just has too much stock, too many ties to other long-timers who also control %s, and is just too practiced in Microsoft-specific infighting.

  • by metlin ( 258108 ) on Friday January 31, 2014 @07:15PM (#46124955) Journal

    I thought Microsoft was trying to re-brand itself as a devices and services player. So, what does it mean when they bring on board a technical, enterprise guy as the CEO?

    To me, it would seem that they're ignoring everything Apple has taught the industry -- usability, good design, and marketing.

    Instead, they'll become the next IBM and be a large behemoth who just does enterprise tech "stuff".

    Quite sad. And I'm pretty sure eventually they'll eventually spin off their Xbox division.

    • by mbkennel ( 97636 ) on Friday January 31, 2014 @07:52PM (#46125185)

      "pivot to Devices and Services" -- That's Ballmerese for "doubling down on your core incompetencies"

      Why is Microsoft trying so hard to compete against highly capable Apple and Google? It's a symptom of 15 years of typical Ballmerist "ooh, shiny.. gimme! I want one too!!!"?

      They just aren't institutionally set up to do so.

      Plan for incoming Microsoft CEO:

      0) Assume your predecessor was wrong about everything until proven otherwise.

      1) Halt the re-org until you know what you're doing.

      2) in addition to "Devices and Services", how about, uh, ***Business Software***???? Now that I work in a mid-large company there is all sorts of ugly and junky application software whose capabilities and quality makes Microsoft Office seem like, oh, a properly-working HAL 9000.

      Instead of throwing themselves up in a pathetic siege against highly capable, wealthy and motivated, Apple and Google, why not shoot for a much softer target: Oracle (other than the relational database). People hate them more than Microsoft and their products are poor.

      Microsoft's primary focus should be "Diversified Business Software": there is a large range of software across many areas with much lower existing standard capability and quality than in the consumer market. MS has the scale to attack this heavily, could actually be good here, and make money consistently.

      3) Windows. Oy vey. Microsoft will remain a primary business software company forever. Deal with it. So, a plan.

      * Release Windows 7.5, backporting all the internal improvements of the Win 8 series which can fit, keeping the Win 7 interface. Expect all your business to upgrade to this, and skip Win 8. It will be the new XP, and you'll support it for at least a decade. Deal with it.

      * Release Windows 8.5 with slightly-less bogosity, and lower your expectations.

      * Much more seriously, go to the Research group and academia and work exceptionally hard to make a truly great, innovative, non-touch desktop interface, possibly including other physical input modalities (alternate mice, hardware, who knows?) Make Windows 9 (or 10) a really big deal. Not different for merely the sake of difference, but unmistakably GOOD. Recognize the physical realities of the world and humans.
      • by lgw ( 121541 )

        1) Halt the re-org until you know what you're doing.

        That only makes sense for an outsider. If the choice is an insider, I'd assume he was driving the reorg from the beginning.

        Release Windows 7.5, backporting all the internal improvements of the Win 8 series which can fit, keeping the Win 7 interface. Expect all your business to upgrade to this, and skip Win 8. It will be the new XP, and you'll support it for at least a decade. Deal with it.

        I'm sure it will be called Windows 9 regardless, but yeah if he doesn't get that a phone needs a very different UI than a server, I'm not sure what could keep MS from arcing over into a long decline.

        Much more seriously, go to the Research group and academia and work exceptionally hard to make a truly great, innovative ...

        I haven't seen anything innovative on the UI side since Gates left. I'd love to see it again, but I suspect it would take a while to find that sort of talent again, and real managerial tal

      • One of Microsofts many blunders has been discontinuing their workstation releases. After Windows 2000, they haven't released a workstation to go with their server versions. That's one big reason businesses have been balking at upgrading "consumer" OSes. Leave Windows 7, 8 etc for the consumer market and release Windows 2012/2014 Workstation!

      • I vote you for Microsoft CEO. But, wait a minute...you can't be: What you say makes sense...
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      "This Swiss army knife sucks because the blade is not as sharp or long as this one". Apple and Microsoft are different platforms; not every problem has a simple or elegant solution. Question: What would Mac be if Microsoft didn't release Office for Mac?

      IBM Failed because they sold their business units one by one to China and without the hardware sales, they couldn't push software and services; companies wanted a complete package. HP, Dell, Acer, they all did the same thing. Management sold the companies

  • by Compuser ( 14899 ) on Friday January 31, 2014 @07:16PM (#46124967)

    Seems like tech companies are trending towards ultraslim CEOs. Like literally dudes who look like they just stepped out of a concentration camp. I blame Apple :)

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday January 31, 2014 @07:28PM (#46125039)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Nope. Cloud guy is going to bring you "Windows as-a-service". First 2 years free updates, then PAY UP!

    • Give the users what they want on the desktop. Give them what they loved about Windows 7 back and give it them for free. Maybe go so far as to offer a free copy of the previous version of Office to everyone who suffered through Windows 8.1 or 8.0.

      Well if leaked screenshots of Windows 8.1 update 1 are true [twitter.com] as well as the boot to desktop which every tech site but slashdot mentioned is coming I would say MS is doing just that.

      AngelWZR leaked Windows 8.1 screenshots too before other betas hit the web and is fairly reputable. That screenshot looked almost identical to Windows 7 but with the metro apps acting like regular applications in it.

      • Well if leaked screenshots of Windows 8.1 update 1 are true [twitter.com] as well as the boot to desktop which every tech site but slashdot mentioned is coming I would say MS is doing just that.

        Still no confirmation on a return of the real Start Menu. Still no return of Aero Glass transparency. Still no option to left-justify the title bar text, as was done on every OS from Win95 to Win7.

        I don't care about the ability to run Metro apps in a window, since I don't ever want to see or interact with any Metro

  • all the chairs at microsoft are taking a sigh of relief.

  • Finally (Score:3, Funny)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Friday January 31, 2014 @07:57PM (#46125203)

    Microsoft can Do The Needful.

  • The enterprise remains a keyâ"perhaps the key â" customer segment for Microsoft

    Really. Microsoft abandoned the enterprise market when they released Windows 7.

    • by trparky ( 846769 )
      No, they abandoned the enterprise market when they released that train wreck known as Windows 8.
  • by wbr1 ( 2538558 ) on Friday January 31, 2014 @08:02PM (#46125241)

    Microsoft's revenue from cloud services has grown by several billion over the past few years, so he's shown that he can expand a business.

    This only proves the person was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Sure there is some skill and intelligence involved. but sitting in a chair and filing important sounding decisions while your market and revenue grow do not always imply competence.By that logic, in some respects Ballmer is a god.

    From wikipedia:

    Under Ballmer's tenure as CEO, Microsoft's annual revenue has surged from $25 billion to $70 billion, while its net income has increased 215 percent to $23 billion, and its gross profit of 75 cents on every dollar in sales is double that of Google or International Business Machines Corp.[20] In terms of leading the company's total annual profit growth, Ballmer's tenure at Microsoft (16.4 percent) has surpassed the performances of other well-known CEOs such as General Electric's Jack Welch (11.2 percent) and IBM's Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. (2 percent).[18]

  • by darylb ( 10898 ) on Friday January 31, 2014 @08:03PM (#46125251)

    Thoughts on all of this:
    1. John Thompson (former Symantec CEO) as Chairman? Oh no. Symantec produced more steaming piles of crap called "software" than any company really has a right to. This wouldn't bode well.

    2. People can say what they want about consumer devices, but enterprise software is worth LOTS of money. Having a guy like Nadella that understands a lot of the enterprise angle running things is a good idea. Yeah, you can sell people a phone (with a final cost of some $500), and a bunch of $1 and $2 applications, and some fraction of a $50 monthly cell bill. OR, you can sell them an OS for each computer in the place at a cost of $30-$50, an indispensable office suite for $150 per seat, client licenses for file servers, active directory, databases, web servers, and the like, PLUS the costly licenses for the server software, PLUS annual maintenance. It's easy to see where the cash is, and it's not in consumer devices.

    3. I can see why people might prefer Windows 7 to Windows 8, but most of the time people are speaking from ignorance, never having used Windows 8 (or having used it only with a mouse). It's a different beast entirely with a touch screen. As for usability, Apple is on a downward slide, IMHO. We're getting nothing but gratuitous changes in every release now, and Mavericks positively ruined an otherwise serviceable 5-year-old MacBook by destroying its performance. Windows Phone 8 is really nice, especially in the way it emphasizes the productivity uses of the phone over games and glitz. It's a lot tighter resource-wise than Android for sure.

    4. Microsoft spends like four times as much on R&D as Apple does. Apple's a rather minor player in this regard.

    I think Microsoft could be positioned for a real resurgence with the right leadership.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      "can see why people might prefer Windows 7 to Windows 8, but most of the time people are speaking from ignorance, never having used Windows 8"

      What? So, if Apple decided to put a full-screen-sized, DPI-scaled-down version of OS X onto iphones with minimal consideration for use without a mouse and keyboard, and wondered why people then hated using iPhones, "those people" would just be ignorant? After all, OS X is a great OS, why shouldn't it be great on an iPhone?

      In reality, we'd call Ap

  • Three Microsoft things I hear about the least, SkyDrive, Azure, and Office 365. Does Microsoft's "Cloud and Enterprise division" equate to Hyper-V?

    • Two things I hear about the least: Active Directory and Exchange. Those are Microsoft's core products.

      Azure is Microsoft's response to Amazon elastic compute. Skydrive...for most people, is a Dropbox knock-off. Office 365 (again: for most people) is a blatant attempt to extract more revenue from Office. Active directory? Best in class? Exchange...what else are you going to use? Lotus Notes? POP3 mail and paper calendars?

      • by darylb ( 10898 )

        Skydrive (soon to be OneDrive, after their settlement with Sky Network) is more than a Dropbox knockoff. It's more similar to Google Drive. Namely, it's an online storage area for documents that aren't tied to a particular computer. Edit that Word document on your Windows Phone? Save it to Skydrive, and it'll magically appear on your tablet or desktop.

        Office 365 is just following in the steps (or alongside of) Adobe in offering a continual-pricing model. You get all the upgrades, and the up-front price is c

  • by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Friday January 31, 2014 @09:07PM (#46125559)
    For a little while, I was afraid that Microsoft would choose someone from outside of their own toxic corporate culture and regain at least a little bit of the dominance they once had. Now that it seems likely they will choose someone who has been drinking the Microsoft KoolAid for several decades, I am suddenly much less worried. Then again, these "leaks" could just be schemes from the board to get the press, business writers, and public at large to critique each candidate for them like one giant focus group.
  • Just posting agian to complain about Slashdot/dice posting links to Buisness Intelligence. Terrible. Horrible. Absolutely hate it with all my being. Stop actually trying to write terrible articles and focus on your core strengths: editing story summaries terribly.

  • I have to wonder what will happen to their outsourcing efforts if a person from India is made CEO? Microsoft already has well over 10,000 jobs outsourced to India as it is now? That being said their enterprise division generally seems to be run much more competently than their other divisions and he may well be the best candidate for the job.

  • Back in the days, a few microsofties who worked with/for this guy would chime in with some interesting observation.

    Now? It's all bullshit comments, including this one by me.

    • Back in the days, a few microsofties who worked with/for this guy would chime in with some interesting observation.

      Can you show a Slashdot Windows article and comments from the past that represents what you would like Slashdot to be today?

      People often have golden memories about what Slashdot used to be, but when you actually start reading the old threads again, it's mostly the same stuff as of today.

  • Nadella used to run Bing. Bing had a leadership vacuum after he left (and still does), but it didn't do all that great while he was there.

    Microsoft's approach to Bing upper management is very strange. Microsoft sends people there, but you never hear about them while they're there. You hear about them after they're promoted to better parts of Microsoft. Mark Penn was brought in to turn around Bing, and accomplished little there. Now he heads Microsoft Advertising. Qi Lu ran Bing for a while, and now he's

  • Who would have guessed that Billg lacks the balls to bring in an outsider and instead will name yet another tired old insider retread to the job. Here is hoping that the fail is massive, even eclipsing Ballmer.

  • Come to think of it, besides being the titular guy in charge of it, how do we know that Nadella understands enterprise?

    I'm just being too lazy to look, but shouldn't there be signs that he's not just a figurehead? You know, memos, presentations, letters to the public or to the staff. Anything?

  • by Aggrajag ( 716041 ) on Saturday February 01, 2014 @02:29AM (#46126801)
    Elop did a fantastic job managing Nokia.
    • This only proves the person was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Sure there is some skill and intelligence involved. but sitting in a chair and filing important sounding decisions while your market and revenue grow do not always imply competence.By that logic, in some respects Ballmer is a god. MCStack [minecraftstack.com]
  • ....here in Little India (formerly known as Seattle), whose small businesses (those which are still left) are taking a pounding, since around half the IT workers are Punjabis (foreign visa scab workers primarily from India, although a few from Pakistan), he will be soundly applauded. Those foreign visa workers from India, unfortunately, don't patronize the local fine restaurants, many of which have now gone out of business, and certainly not the book stores for their tech books, as the local and American I
  • Just saying, some of the comments on here are frankly disgusting and, surprisingly, not all just AC.

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