Microsoft has announced that Satya Nadella will be its next leader, betting on a longtime engineering executive to help the company keep better pace with changes in technology.
The selection of Mr Nadella to replace Steven Ballmer, which was widely expected, was accompanied by news that Bill Gates, a company founder, would step down from his role as chairman and become a technology adviser to Mr Nadella.
John Thompson, 64, a member of the Microsoft board who oversaw its search for a new chief executive, will become the company’s chairman, replacing Mr Gates.
“During this time of transformation, there is no better person to lead Microsoft than Satya Nadella,” said Mr Gates, who will remain a member of Microsoft’s board. “Satya is a proven leader with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together.”
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In Mr Nadella, Microsoft’s directors selected both a company insider and an engineer, suggesting that they viewed technical skill and intimacy with Microsoft’s sprawling businesses as critical for its next leader.
It has often been noted that Microsoft was more successful under the leadership of Mr Gates, a programmer and its first chief executive, than it was under Mr Ballmer, who had a background in sales. Mr Ballmer, 57, said in August that he was stepping down.
Mr Nadella, 46, from Hyderabad, India, will be only the third chief executive of Microsoft, 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 capitalise on those changes.
It remains to be seen whether Mr Nadella’s technical background, along with the closer involvement of Mr Gates in product decisions, will give the company an edge it lacked during the Ballmer years. Microsoft said in a statement that Mr Gates will “devote more time to the company, supporting Nadella in shaping technology and product direction.”
Relinquishing his role as chairman will allow Mr 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 Mr Nadella’s selection. Mr Gates said that Mr Nadella asked him to make the change in his duties at Microsoft.
Date: February 5, 2014