After much speculation and rumor after rumor, Microsoft has finally named Steve Ballmer’s replacement – Satya Nadella. Nadella is an “insider” having been with the company for over 20 years. He isn’t well-known publicly, but has gained respect within Microsoft for his work on cloud services and also with the server and tools portion of the business. Bill Gates has also assumed a new role “founder and technology advisor,” and plans to spend more time at the company. He will be succeeded as chairman by John Thompson.
We see this move by Microsoft as a very safe bet and aren’t expecting Nadella to make any big moves, at least not any time soon. It will be interesting to see where he takes the consumer facing side of the business, as this is uncharted territory for Nadella.
What do you think?