Who is Satya Nadella? The man said to be Microsoft’s next CEO

 

 

Pocket-lint

Gadget Reviews, Product News, Electronic Gadgets // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Who is Satya Nadella? The man said to be Microsoft's next CEO
2/1/2014 5:44:00 AM

Microsoft's CEO search is finally coming to an end, with a replacement for Steve Ballmer coming within the next week, according to Recode.

There have been several potential successors named over the last few months. The search party's shortlist, made up by Microsoft board members, is said to include former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, Ford boss Alan Mulally, Skype leader Tony Bates, and Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf. However, there's one candidate in particular the board is ready to name.

Satya Nadella, who currently serves as Microsoft's executive vice president of the Cloud and Enterprise group, is set to be the next CEO, Bloomberg first reported. The New York Times, Recode, and The Wall Street Journal all say Nadella is the preferred candidate. The board still has to make a final decision though, set to come any day.

But who is Mr. Nadella? He's certainly not a prevalent name across tech media, though his contributions and what he could bring to Microsoft's future are huge. We've compiled information about Nadella to give you a breakdown.

Extensive education and Sun roots

Nadella, 47, was born in Hyderabad, India, earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Mangalore University in his home country. He then came to the United States to earn a master's degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and then to the University of Chicago to earn a master's degree in business administration.

Following his extensive education, Nadella went to Sun Microsystems where he was a member of the technology staff. He left Sun in 1992 to join Microsoft and has quickly rose through the ranks growing Microsoft's Internet ventures along the way.

Bing and to the cloud

Nadella held the position of senior vice president of R&D for the Online Services Division and vice president of the Business Division at Microsoft. There he worked to grow Bing into the search engine it is now. While Bing hasn't overtaken Google, Nadella helped it get off the ground considerably, forming key partnerships with brands, Yahoo, advertisers, and others.

He was then made the president of Microsoft's $19 billion Server and Tools Business and led a transformation of the company's business and technology culture from client services to cloud infrastructure and services.

He has been credited for bringing Microsoft's database, Windows server and developer tools, and Azure cloud to the level they are now, ultimately being a very profitable move for Microsoft. 

Now Nadella is executive vice president of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise group, responsible for building and running the company's computing platforms, developer tools, and cloud services. The cloud business for Microsoft is said to be an important one for years to come, including bringing Office to the cloud through Microsoft's Office 365 product - a growing product for the company.

The revenue from Cloud Services grew to $20.3 billion in June 2013 from $16.6 billion when he took over in 2011.

"Cloud is perhaps the most secular growth engine out there because it scales with a number of devices, it scales with a number of apps, so it scales with the users and their devices and their apps," Nadella said in a recent interview with Gigaom. "So that means all of those things are calling back home, they need more compute, they need more storage, and so therefore, cloud is the one thing you can bet on, is that there is going to be more cloud. Just because you can imagine all of those other things exploring."

Nadella is currently leading the next forefront of Microsoft products, as Windows sales dry up from slowing PC sales. Thus, Microsoft has begun to go for the "less sexy" parts of business, like enterprise software, cloud, servers, and developers tools, set to generate more profit as time passes.

"We significantly outpaced enterprise IT spend as we continue to take share from our competitors by delivering the devices and services our customers need as they transition to the cloud," Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft, said in an earnings statement in January. "Our commercial cloud services revenue grew more than 100 per cent year-over-year, as customers are embracing Office 365, Azure, and Dynamics CRM Online, and making long-term commitments to the Microsoft platform."

Why Nadella?

Nadella has 22 years of experience with the inner-workings of Microsoft, serving under both Bill Gates and Ballmer, the only two CEOs the company has had in its 38-year history. He has built and managed growing sectors at Microsoft, he's personable and funny in interviews unlike Ballmer who is usually loud, and according to Bloomberg, he is diplomatic within the company.

Nadella's thoughts on being CEO

Of course, nothing has been announced, and it's not even a sure thing Nadella will be the CEO of Microsoft (though it's looking likely). In an interview at the LeWeb conference for start-ups and Web entrepreneurs in Paris, Nadella addressed a question about the CEO search. Interviewer Om Malik asked Nadella what it was like to work at Microsoft while being a possible CEO candidate.

"For me, it's a great time to be at Microsoft for what we're doing. And day to day, it is about getting focused on what I'm doing and I'm excited to be doing that," responded Nadella, who, in a seperate interview with Bloomberg, also said he would stay at Microsoft no matter what happened with the CEO search.

A more vocal CFO and new chairman

CNET makes a great point that if Nadella is appointed CEO, chief financial officer Amy Hood is likely to play a much larger role at the company.

"We believe the combination of Mr. Nadella and Ms. Hood could be a recipe for successfully managing Microsoft's transition to a 'devices & services' company and, ultimately, driving better shareholder value," said Barclay Capital's Raimo Lenschow.

"We think new CFO Amy Hood is very operationally focused, very bright and capable of managing costs and taking steps along with Mr. Nadella to both fix the business and enhance shareholder value," Nomura analyst and long time Microsoft watcher Rick Sherlund said.

When Bloomberg reported on Nadella being the next CEO, it also mentioned that the board may remove founder Bill Gates from his position of chairman. Gates would still have an active role in the company, offering guidance, but the board is said to want a change-up across the company to bring a fresh new perspective to the table.

Board member John Thompson is named as a possible replacement to Gates.

Is Nadella the right man for the job?

"Relevance comes with innovation and marketplace success," Nadella said an in October interview with The Wall Street Journal. "The marketplace will speak so loudly and so clearly that it will not be ambiguous."

Nadella will have a big task under his hands putting Microsoft back at full pace. He'll have the Nokia handset unit to grow and make Windows Phone a serious contender, continue growing the Xbox unit's place in the living room, keep refining Windows 8 and Windows 9 to make attractive to customers, and grow the cloud services and enterprise business.

We'll be tracking if Nadella is actually the company's next CEO. An announcement is expected very soon.

Do you think Nadella is the right man for the job?

 

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at feedmyinbox.com

If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions