Microsoft Close To Hiring New CEO: Report

Microsoft's own Satya Nadella could be in the lead to become its next CEO, according to reports. Microsoft

Could Microsoft’s lengthy struggle to replace outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer be at an end?
Sources close to Microsoft say a new CEO could be named in the next week, according to Re/code, and the most likely choice is Satya Nadella, the company’s executive vice president of the Cloud and Enterprise group.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to CruxialCIO's request for comment.
Re/code’s sources say that Nadella’s long history with the company is a major point in favor of his candidacy. Nadella first started at Microsoft in 1992. Since then, Nadella has served as the senior vice president of R&D for the Online Services Division, as the vice president of the Microsoft Business Division, and as the president of the Server and Tools business.
n his current role as head of Cloud and Enterprise, Nadella builds and runs Microsoft’s computing platforms, developer tools and cloud services. Over the course of his career, Nadella’s responsibilities have been a central part of Microsoft’s larger-scale shift from software into cloud services, a trajectory the company will likely continue to follow.
Ever since Ballmer first announced his impending departure in August 2013, the company’s search for its next leader has been closely followed. High-profile candidates such as Ford CEO Alan Mulally, Qualcomm COO Steve Mollenkopf and Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg have all appeared on the short list to succeed Ballmer.
In December 2013, Mullaly’s announcement that he would stay Ford’s CEO through 2014 removed him from consideration, while more recently Ericsson’s Vestberg reassured his board of the same. Qualcomm announced that COO Mollenkopf would become CEO of the company in March 2014, in what some saw as an effort to keep him from Microsoft.
Only a few potential candidates are still standing after the rumor dust has settled. Among them is Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, who led Microsoft’s business division from 2008 to 2010. Elop will be returning to Microsoft one way or another following Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia’s devices division, once he and another 32,000 Nokia employees are transferred over.
Others have floated another Microsoft insider, executive vice president of business development and evangelism Tony Bates, as a possible pick. Bates, who also leads Microsoft’s corporate strategy, previously served as the president of Skype, and prior to Skype’s acquisition in October 2011 as the CEO of Skype. Before Skype, Bates worked for Cisco, where he managed the Enterprise, Commercial and Small Business group.
Whoever it is will have big shoes to fill, as CEO Ballmer steps down 13 years after he first replaced Microsoft’s then-CEO Bill Gates in 2000. During his tenure, Microsoft’s yearly revenue has more than tripled from $22.9 billion in 2000 to $73.7 billion in 2012. Recently, Microsoft reported earnings of $24.5 billion for Q2 2014, a 14 percent increase from the same period in the previous year. Hardware sales were up 68 percent from 2012, with sales of Surface tablets more than doubling year over year, while commercial cloud services revenue for products such as Office 365 also doubled.