MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Microsoft names Satya Nadella as new CEO; Gates becomes technology advisor
Nadella is a 22-year veteran in the company and helped create the 'cloud' Microsoft Corp named company veteran Satya Nadella as its next chief executive officer, ending a longer-than-expected search for a new leader after Steve Ballmer announced his intention to retire in August.
Indina born Nadella is only the third CEO in Microsoft's 39-year history, following co-founder Bill Gates and Ballmer.
Microsoft also said John Thompson, lead independent director, would succeed Gates as chairman. Gates will assume a new role as technology adviser and retain a seat on the board, the company said in a statement.
Shares of the world's largest software maker were up 1.1% in premarket trading following the news.
The choice of Nadella was widely expected, and investors and analysts are already weighing how effective the 22-year veteran will be in re-igniting the company's mobile ambitions and satisfying Wall Street's hunger for cash.
Microsoft faces a slow erosion of its PC-centric Windows and Office franchises and needs to somehow challenge Apple Inc and Google Inc in the new realm of mobile computing. At the same time, some investors are campaigning for retrenchment and a bigger cut of the company's massive cash pile.
Most agree that Nadella's background in creating Microsoft's Internet-based, or “cloud,” computing services makes him a safe pair of hands to take the company forward, but there remains a question over his ability to make Microsoft a hit with consumers or with impatient shareholders.
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Disclaimer & comment rules-
Read all commentsI don't use the G3 features on my mobile and have three upscale computers online during the daytime and have my own PN in the UK.
Feb 05th, 2014 - 07:23 pm 0Windows 8 has been a disaster for me and I have not moved it from my proving computer to any of the others. It seems MS are determined to leave the business world in the lurch across the planet and are concentrating on the plebs and the other idiots who have gone to the cloud as a way of “reducing costs and complexity” even though they are private individuals.
That's OK for domestic users who can only lose private files: not so good when your businesses lose theirs as happened to a business colleague whose “customers” encouraged him to “join them”. He will be lucky to still be trading the way it’s going so far for him.
I hate to think of it but it seems Linux in one of its’ guises may be the way for me when Win7 loses support.
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