Satya Nadella At Six Months: Grading Microsoft's New CEO

snydeq writes The future emerging for Microsoft under Nadella is a mixed bag of hope and turmoil, writes Woody Leonhard in his review of Nadella's first fix months at the helm of Microsoft. "When Nadella took over, Microsoft was mired in the aftermath of a lengthy and ultimately unpopular reign by longtime CEO — and Microsoft majority shareholder — Steve Ballmer. Given the constraint of that checkered past, some might argue that Nadella hasn't had enough time to make his imprint on every aspect of Microsoft. Yet there have been many changes already under Nadella's watch, and patterns are certainly emerging as to the kind of company Microsoft will be in the years ahead." Leadership, product lines, financials — Nadella's scorecard shows strong strategic leadership, particularly around the cloud, but Windows and devices are murky at best, with Microsoft employees "taking it in the shorts, and not only in Finland."

Microsoft - a company time has passed by

[Anonymous Coward]

The importance of Microsoft is a thing of the past. It has been eclipsed in all major areas except its Office software. It has tried frantically to wedge its foot in the door in such disparate areas as phones, games, personal electronics, media, and finance. It has been out-competed at every turn by other, more agile and newer, companies. It is simply a matter of time before most people life their lives free of the Microsoft parasite and unless you are a corporate lackey, you can actually do so right now.

Microsoft majority shareholder?

[ZipK]

CEO — and Microsoft majority shareholder — Steve Ballmer.

Ballmer doesn't hold a majority stake in Microsoft. In fact, no one does. Ballmer holds the largest individual stake, but his stake is in single digits as a percentage.

Re:Microsoft majority shareholder?

[ZipK]

Ballmer is the fourth largest shareholder, behind Blackrock, Capital Group and Vanguard. Blackrock's stake is 5.4%. http://blogs.seattletimes.com/... [seattletimes.com]

Nadella is part of the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was an MS employee for 10 years (roughly from the mid-90's to the mid-00's).
It is a company that is fundamentally dysfunctional, especially in the way it identifies its top performers.
Nadella rose to the top under that system. There is no way he is the man to fix it.

A few years ago I had a lapse in judgement and interviewed to go back. What I saw was scary. The technical questions were way too easy. I suspect that the employees asking them found them hard. The hiring manager was a Director and had trouble understanding moderately clever/optimized solutions to CS200 problems. Portions of the interview process that dealt with management style, corporate culture and cultural fit left me with the impression that things had gotten way worse since I'd left as far as micromanagement and internal politics went.

In the end they made me an insulting offer, which in retrospect I am eternally grateful for because it was really easy to turn down without any second thoughts whatsoever.