Microsoft board to name Satya Nadella as new chief executive

Microsoft Corp.’s board of directors is preparing to appoint Satya Nadella on the position of the chief executive officer of the company, according to a news-agency report on Thursday. In addition, the company plans to replace chairman of the board, Bill Gates, with an independent director.

The candidate to succeed Steve Ballmer as the next CEO of Microsoft is Satya Nadella, the executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group, reports Bloomberg news-agency. In addition, the board of directors is mulling to replace chairman Bill Gates with the lead independent director John Thompson, the agency claims.

At present Satya Nadella is responsible for building and running the company’s computing platforms, developer tools and cloud services. Mr. Nadella and his team deliver the “Cloud OS”, Microsoft’s next generation backend platform, which is designed for modern application needs. The Cloud OS is a platform that spans public, private and service provider clouds. Previously, Mr. Nadella was president of Microsoft’s $19 billion Server and Tools Business and led the transformation of the business and technology from client-server software to cloud infrastructure and services.

Satya Nadella, who joined Microsoft in 1992, has been considered as the most likely internal candidate for the CEO position for several months now. Since no likely external candidates have transpired on the radar, it looks like Mr. Nadella will almost certainly become the head of the world’s largest software developer.

Mr. Nadella is not only a Microsoft veteran with a good track record, but he is the person who is shaping the future of the software in general at the moment. He may have a lot of emotional ties to Microsoft’s products and initiatives, but he clearly knows where the software and the IT world are heading.

Microsoft did not comment on the news-story.

Kit Guru Says: It will be interesting to see how a software executive who has been primarily in the server business throughout his whole career will manage Microsoft’s own-brand hardware direction.

Become a Patron!