It’s official! The rumors and speculation can finally end. Satya Nadella has been named the third CEO of Microsoft as Ballmer exits.
46 year old Nadella was born in Hyderabad, India, and has been with Microsoft for 22 years. He comes from Microsoft’s Servers and Tools Business, where he pushed cloud initiatives, supporting many other divisions within Microsoft including XBox, Bing, Office, and more. He’s an interesting pick, as his background would suggest Microsoft is focusing on bringing more cloud integration to consumer products. I personally hope to see more unification between various products, and cloud data is going to be key in delivering on a “One OS Per Person” strategy.
A New Chairman of the Board…
Bill Gates is also stepping down from his position of Chairman, and will be moving to a new position on the board. He’ll be “Founder and Technology Advisor”, and will be working directly with Nadella in shaping future Microsoft strategies.
John W. Thompson of Virtual Instruments (former CEO of Symantec, and former General Manager of IBM Americas) will move into the Chairman position on Microsoft’s Board of Directors. This appointment further reinforces their focus on cloud computing.
Following news of the announcement, trading has been quietly positive. At the time of this post, MSFT was up almost two tenths on the NASDAQ.
Microsoft has put together a wonderful Welcome Page for Nadella’s announcement with interviews and video, and you can read the full press release below.
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