Microsoft Might Name Indian-born Satya Nadella as Its CEO

By Vivek

| Updated: Friday, January 31, 2014, 18:00 [IST]

Gossips making rounds within the IT community, and concerned groups, regarding the person who could be brought to the CEO's chair for Microsoft Corp. might just end soon. The latest report from Bloomberg suggests that the Redmond-based software giant's board members are already preparing to make Satya Nadella the company's chief executive officer.

Microsoft Might Name Indian-born Satya Nadella as Its CEO

The publication via its sources, close to the situation, says that the company is also in a discussion about replacing Bill Gates as the chairman. When it comes to picking a chair-person, it is reportedly said that Microsoft's lead independent director John Thompson could be a possible candidate.

Even if Gates steps down as chairman, he may still be more involved in the company, said two people familiar with the matter. Gates' involvement will particularly be subjected to areas like product development.

Weeks ago, when the company was weighing the potential of the nominated candidates, Nadella, 46, emerged as one of the stronger names to replace departing CEO Steve Ballmer. According to Bloomberg, Nadella has jumped forward as the front runner in recent weeks as Ballmer's replacement beating a field of talented external candidates that included Ford Motor's CEO Alan Mulally, Qualcomm Inc. CEO-elect Steve Mollenkopf and Ericsson AB CEO Hans Vestberg.

Nadella, a native of Hyderabad, India, was responsible for running Microsoft's fast expanding internet-based computing initiative in July last year as part of current CEO Steve Ballmer's radical re-organization of the company.

He joined Microsoft in 1992 and is currently the executive vice president of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise group. He is responsible for developing and running the company's computing platforms, developer tools and cloud services.

Prior to this, he was in charge of Microsoft's growing server and tools business, following up from high-level roles in Microsoft's Office and Bing search engine units.

Talking in terms of shares and profit, over the past decade, Microsoft's stock has increased by 74% including dividends, compared to a 93 percent rise in the Standard and Poor's 500 Index.

However, the report from Bloomberg said that the company has not finalized their decision of crowning Nadella as the CEO of the company, as of now.