Microsoft's board on
Tuesday(04.02.2014) named Hyderabad-born Satya
Nadella as chief executive of the
legendary tech giant that has given the world products which have become
household names like Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook Express. The
announcement elevates Nadella, an offspring of the Indian system, to one of the
highest-profile corporate jobs globally.
 |
| SATYA NADELLA |
Nadella, 46, will be only the third CEO
of Microsoft after founder Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, the man he is
succeeding.
The elevation of Nadella, a company insider for 22 years (he recently joked
that he has also been married for 22 years), was expected once heavyweight
outsiders like Ford's Alan Mulally and Nokia's Stephen Elop dropped out or were
passed up. The names of Google's Sundar Pichai and Motorola's previous CEO
Sanjay Jha also briefly made the rounds, serving to highlight the intensity of
PIOs breaking the glass ceiling, something that began some two decades ago, but
has become more pronounced now.
In picking Nadella, Microsoft directors selected both a company insider and an
engineer. It has often been noted that Microsoft was more successful under the
leadership of Gates, a programmer and its first chief executive, than it was
under Ballmer, who had a background in sales.
Satya Nadella now finds himself the head of an icon of American business that
has struggled for position in big growth markets like mobile and Internet
search. The company has correctly anticipated many of the biggest changes in
technology — the rise of smartphones and tablet computers, to use two examples
— but it has often fumbled the execution of products developed to capitalize on
those changes.
It remains to be seen whether Nadella's technical background, along with the
closer involvement of Gates in product decisions, will give the company an edge
it lacked during the Ballmer years. Microsoft said in a statement that Gates
will "devote more time to the company, supporting Nadella in shaping
technology and product direction."
Relinquishing his role as chairman will allow Gates to spend over a third of
his time with product groups at Microsoft, "substantially increasing my
time at the company," he said in a video made for the news of Nadella's
selection. Gates said Nadella asked him to make the change in his duties at
Microsoft.
Nadella is a contrast to Ballmer in other ways. Most recently the executive
vice president of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise businesses, Nadella peppers
his conversations and speeches with technical buzzwords that people outside the
industry would most likely find impenetrable.
Nadella showed ambition early in his career. He received degrees in engineering
and computer science, then earned an MBA from the
University of Chicago Booth
School of Business while working full time at Microsoft. He flew to Chicago from Seattle to
attend classes on the weekend, according to Steven Kaplan, a professor at the
school who taught Nadella in a course on entrepreneurial finance and private
equity.
"He is take charge, smart, but in a likable way," Kaplan said, adding
that Nadella received an A in the course.
While many executives within Microsoft tend to be polarizing figures, Nadella
appears to be well liked in much of the company. Still, those who know him well
say he is not a pushover as a boss.
Nadella's star at Microsoft rose considerably in the past several years as he
took charge of the company's cloud computing efforts, a business considered
vital as more business customers choose to rent applications and other programs
in far-off data centers rather than run software themselves.
For years, Microsoft did not pay enough attention to how the cloud was
attracting the creativity of a new generation of developers. When he got
control of the division that included Microsoft's cloud initiatives, Nadella
changed that. He began meeting with start-ups to hear more about what Microsoft
needed to do to become more responsive to their needs.
"When you look at the most exciting things happening in tech, all the
platform shifts happening and disruption — social, mobile, cloud — Microsoft
has not even been part of the conversation until recently," said Brad
Silverberg, a Seattle-area investor and a former Microsoft executive. "With
Satya's leadership, Microsoft is doing interesting things in cloud."
But Nadella has to grapple with a much broader set of challenges in markets in
which he has little experience, like mobile devices. He inherits a deal to
acquire Nokia's mobile handset business, along with 33,000 employees, and a
wide-ranging reorganization plan devised by Ballmer and still in progress.
In an interview in July, Nadella was supportive of the reorganization plan,
which he predicted would allow Microsoft to adapt to changes in the market more
quickly than in the past. "It's not like our old structure didn't allow us
to do some of this," he said. "The question is whether you can
amplify."
In his statement on Tuesday, Nadella said: "The opportunity ahead for
Microsoft is vast, but to seize it, we must focus clearly, move faster and
continue to transform. A big part of my job is to accelerate our ability to
bring innovative products to our customers more quickly."
Nadella was Microsoft's second-highest paid executive last year, earning $7.7
million in salary, bonus and stock grants. Only COO Kevin Turner made more.
Microsoft has not yet announced his new package.
Nadella's elevation makes him the highest-ranked executive of Indian origin in
the corporate world, ahead of such familiar names as Pepsico's Indra Nooyi and
Mastercard's Ajay Banga. Microsoft's Windows still runs roughly nine out of
every 10 desktop and laptop computers in the world, and its Office and Exchange
programs are corporate mainstays. The company generated $27 billion in
operating profit in the year ended June 30, and holds $84 billion in cash,
making it a corporate powerhouse despite the relative decline in its fortune in
recent years.
Thanks :Times of India & The Hindu
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Unknown
