back to article It's Satya! Microsoft VP Nadella named CEO as Bill Gates steps down

Microsoft’s new CEO is the executive running its $20bn server, tools and cloud computing businesses: Satya Nadella. Forty-six-year-old Nadella will, as earlier reports had suggested, assume the role immediately, Microsoft said on Tuesday. Also, as reported, Bill Gates is stepping down as Microsoft chairman. Gates will stay …

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  1. Jones

    Hail Ants

    I, for one, welcome our new Chief Executive Overlord

  2. Conrad Longmore

    Not Elop then.

    Mr Nadella seems to have the right credentials for the job, and I would certainly have been shocked if Stephen Elop got the job instead.. not because I think that Nokia's woes are all Elop's fault, but it was hardly the sort of turnaround success that Microsoft needs now.

    1. dogged

      Re: Not Elop then.

      It pretty much takes an Eadon (or Bob "let's tell lies about toolbars" Vistakin) to argue that MS produce bad servers and bad tools.

      Since that was his baby, let's hope the quality starts coming through in the rest of the business.

      1. Bob Vistakin
        Devil

        Re: Not Elop then.

        People actually use Windows as a *server*? Well I never. Gosh, next you'll be telling me they have a ... hey, hang on, you're right. Let's not harp on about you know what anymore, but instead see if you for once have the balls to comment on the topic all microsoft shills conveniently ignore - the extortion racket they are running with Android, by which of course I mean their only meaningful contribution to mobile being the $5 per handset they fleece from the OEMs.

        1. hoverboy

          Re: Not Elop then.

          I own some patents. I worked long and hard for them. I wouldn't give them away, why the f*** should MS give away theirs? They are NOT trolls, they are active in the field.

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: Not Elop then.

            Has Microsoft said what patents Android violates? Have they been challenged in court?

            Or has their just been a letter to Samsung/Sony/Lenovo etc saying "call it $5 per tablet and you won't suddenly find your OEM licence to sell copies of Windows on your PCs and Laptops cut off. And this time it's not abuse of a monopoly because you are actually paying for patents."

            1. CmdrX3

              Re: Not Elop then.

              "Has Microsoft said what patents Android violates? Have they been challenged in court?"

              Maybe not, but the fact that not just one but quite a few very large companies that could easily afford to fight the patents have chosen to pay the fee rather than go to court suggests that MS probably have a rather strong patent claim that will stand up in court.

            2. h4rm0ny

              Re: Not Elop then.

              >>"Has Microsoft said what patents Android violates? Have they been challenged in court?"

              They've said it to the companies involved which are the relevant parties. They've not been challenged in court which gives you a pretty clear idea of how slim the paying organizations think their chances of victory are.

              >>"Or has their just been a letter to Samsung/Sony/Lenovo etc saying "call it $5 per tablet and you won't suddenly find your OEM licence to sell copies of Windows on your PCs and Laptops cut off."

              Microsoft couldn't legally do that. It would be shot down easily in court under anti-trust laws. Which shows how very little you actually know what you're talking about. As to a court case over the patents themselves (the more plausible scenario), we're talking Samsung here. Not a company known to be shy of lawsuits. And Sony. And Lenovo. Do you have the remotest idea how big these players are? Or do you just have a mental map in which Microsoft is this giant evil colossus that dwarfs all others? Hell, Google has a higher market-cap than Microsoft! Do you really think that between all these huge companies, they wouldn't turn over MS's patents if they weren't valid?

              TL;DR: You're a partisan idiot.

      2. MJI Silver badge

        Re: Bad Servers

        And yes they are. We are just pushed into using them.

        RIP Netware

        1. dogged

          Re: Bad Servers

          a. Netware was shit.

          b. If you're pushed into using something that's bad, make a business case for using something that isn't bad. Unless you can't because the thing that's actually bad is you.

          1. MJI Silver badge

            Re: Bad Servers

            Netware was bloody reliable, quick and gave us little issue.

            But customers insisted on their Windows servers despite the performance drop when they downgraded.

            18 month uptimes were commonplace.

            The rot was also forced by MS breaking Netware clients, and the insistance of Novell to add a GUI to the server,

            Final death was due to lack of support from our customers hardware support teams.

            Our sites with 4.x or 5.x ran reliably for years.

    2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Not Elop then.

      >it was hardly the sort of turnaround success that Microsoft needs now.

      Unless you subscribe to the theory that he was sent to wreck Nokia so MSFT could buy them, and their patents, for a pittance

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Welcome to Toyland!

    Oh no... Mr Wobbly Ballmer is leaving and Noddy Nadella got the job as mayor of Toyland.

    Big Ears Gates is stepping down....

    Makes me wonder who bumpy dog and Mr Plod are ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Welcome to Toyland!

      "Big Ears Gates is stepping down...."

      Only to a degree. He's still got an official status within the firm, and so his presence will linger on like a foul guff in a warm lift. You know the ones, hot, silent messengers of death, capable of turning the silvering of mirrors black, and guaranteeing that the lift will stop at the next floor for an attractive young colleague to get in the lift, and instantly give you the evil eye for crimes against humanity, before escaping to tell everybody what a beast you are (gentlemen, you've all been here).

      And that's bad news for the new guy. Not only does he have a new chairman breathing down his collar, but he's got Gates hanging around, responsible for nothing, but telling him what he should do. I suppose it depends what shareholders want. If they want Microsoft to reinvent itself, Gates should go, Nadella shouldn't have been appointed, nor any other insider. If the shareholders just want MS to remain a cash generating cow hoping that nobody will take away the enterprise software market, then he should stay. But expecting not just one, but a gang of insiders to be revolutionaries is daft - all these people were complicit in the failure of Microsoft to evolve. And Nadella's got the toxic Elop hanging around, spurned for the top job, hoping Nadella will mess up, and that Elop can squeeze his backside into the sweat-stained leather throne. That's no recipe for success. A question then: Will Elop last long enough to watch Nadella crash and burn, or will Elop be pushed out, or even flounce off in a strop because he didn't get to be big cheese?

      This doesn't sound like a recipe for success to me, but maybe the people who made the appointment are right - taking a view Microsoft will never evolve to put customers first, so why take the risk, when you can just sit and count the gold for the next five to ten years.

      1. Dom 3

        Re: Welcome to Toyland!

        It would appear to me that on the contrary, there's been a large cultural shift in MS's engineering since BG took his hand off the tiller. Whereas BG famously argued against code modularity:

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/06/ams_goes_windows_for_warships/

        by the time of IIS 7, MS were trumpeting that very same modularity and replace-ability that Gates had argued against:

        http://www.iis.net/overview/choice/modularandextensiblewebserver

        Similarly you just have to look at the download size of the browser testing VMs that MS have made available to realise that they have put a lot of effort into modularising the OS.

        Gates's point of course is that there's no *commercial* value in allowing other companies to release components that can replace your software - quite the opposite in fact.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Welcome to Toyland!

          You can argue that the Linux kernel isn't modular either. It's certainly monolithic in nature.

          When you start splitting things up you do start to create issues of compatibility and blame. Web server crashes due to bad module, web server gets the blame when its the fault of a bad module.

          This is why Microsoft stopped letting 3rd party drivers be automatically usable. Windows crashed and Microsoft got the flak for some vendors bad driver. It's the same reason Linus keeps having fits at people for committing bad unfinished code to the kernel.

        2. h4rm0ny

          Re: Welcome to Toyland!

          "Gates's point of course is that there's no *commercial* value in allowing other companies to release components that can replace your software - quite the opposite in fact."

          Gates has since witnessed how it is possible to be open and yet still have subtle soft control over the market. Look at Google. Technically open, and dozens of tiny little barriers to going against the way they do it. Watch for MS to follow Google's lead with a lot more 'soft' control in the future. Gates wasn't wrong about stopping people being able to leave. He just didn't realize you could do it without overt force.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Welcome to Toyland!

      I for one will be shouting support to him at every opportunity:

      "Go nads, go nads go....!"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Go

        Re: Welcome to Toyland! @ AC

        Go Nads!

        ROFL +1

        When he makes his first cock-up it's going to be "Nads drops a bollock".

      2. El Gokri'x

        Re: Welcome to Toyland!

        > I for one will be shouting support to him at every opportunity:

        > "Go nads, go nads go....!"

        Been watching "Two and a Half Men"?

    3. Charles Manning

      Ain't nothing going to change

      BillG has been firmly in charge all along.

      During the Ballmer era, BillG had found the day-to-day CEO-ship tiresome and handed that over to Ballmer. He never really relinquished control though.

      Ballmer might have been CEO, but BillG was charirman. Ballmer was only there due to being BFFs with BillG. BillG just operated Ballmer like a glove puppet.

      Now we have a new puppet. BillG has also found the chairmanship tiresome, but still keeps his technical control hat on.

      So expect some changes in business models etc, but all the ribbons, TIFKAMs and other technical geegaws will continue.

      1. BillG
        Angel

        Re: Ain't nothing going to change

        BillG has been firmly in charge all along

        I politely disagree (I have to). If you put MS bias aside, it wasn't until BillG stepped down from the day-to-day responsibilities of managing Microsoft that the company started losing it's grip on what their customer base wanted. It was BillG that decided to integrate IE into Windows because after he abandoned his initial skepticism with the internet, he realized that the browser was the most important app in any computer.

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
          Headmaster

          Re: Ain't nothing going to change

          he realized that the browser was the most important app in any computer

          He realized that monopolizing access to "The Interwebs" via a proprietary and "enhanced" portal application fused to the underlying OS like a facehugger would make sure that Microsoft would stay a factor in the age of interchangeable commodity browsers and standards as people would need to have Windows to get the "enhanced" Internet.

          Hope this helps, you can go back to erasing Stalin's ex-colleagues out of photographs.

          Nothing is more disgusting than Gates and his proprietary shit sandwiches.

          1. h4rm0ny

            Re: Ain't nothing going to change

            >>He realized that monopolizing access to "The Interwebs" via a proprietary and "enhanced" portal application fused to the underlying OS like a facehugger would make sure that Microsoft would stay a factor in the age of interchangeable commodity browsers and standards as people would need to have Windows to get the "enhanced" Internet.

            You realize that the "portal application fused to the underlying OS like a facehugger" was simply ahead of its time? What do you think ChromeOS, is? What about Firefox OS or the latest Ubuntu desktops or how tablets and phones now integrate HTML / CSS rendering and JavaScript directly into the OS for performance reasons? MS was its usual victim of coming in too early. But the Active Desktop was actually an early ancestor of what we see today.

  4. ElectricFox
    Windows

    Personally, I'd have nominated Eadon for his enthusiasm alone...

    1. Wilseus

      "Personally, I'd have nominated Eadon for his enthusiasm alone..."

      Hmm, I doubt Eadon could have done a better job at sabotaging the company than Ballmer appears to have done!

      1. Vector

        Re: "Personally, I'd have nominated Eadon for his enthusiasm alone..."

        “He has a remarkable ability ... to really understand how we come together at Microsoft to execute against those opportunities in a collaborative way,” Ballmer said.

        Just as they've done for the last 5 years or so!

  5. plrndl
    Alien

    Jobs for the boys

    Presumably he was the only contender who looks like Steve Jobs.

    1. Captain DaFt

      Re: Jobs for the boys

      "Presumably he was the only contender who looks like Steve Jobs."

      I *knew* I couldn't be the only one thinking that!

  6. Wyrdness

    Cowboys & Indians

    After years of being led by a cowboy, Microsoft will now have an Indian chief.

    1. Bladeforce

      Re: Cowboys & Indians

      Very true and the Indians still lost a lot of their own ground too

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cowboys & Indians

        Cowboys or Indians who cares? .... we're the grass and we get trampled in either case.

        1. GBE

          Re: Cowboys & Indians

          Grass doesn't always get trampled.

          Some of it gets eaten, and some of it gets shat upon.

          1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

            Re: Cowboys & Indians

            And the rest is used for astroturfing Windows 8 in the comment section.

            1. h4rm0ny

              Re: Cowboys & Indians

              >>"And the rest is used for astroturfing Windows 8 in the comment section."

              You know what would be the first and most effective tactic at undermining those saying positive things about Microsoft if I were a shill hired by one of their competitors? To immediately start making statements about how other people were shills.

              So, guilty conscience or just paranoia. Heaven forbid that some people should actually like what one of the leading software companies in the world produces. Clearly they are in that position because everyone hates their products!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reading the te leaves

    It is interesting someone from the stable, old school part of the business is now running the show.

    I wonder what that says for the under performing consumer flops ()if I worked on Bong right now I would be nervous).

  8. The Man Himself Silver badge
    Coat

    surprised?

    "Ballmer announced his surprise resignation in August 2013."

    He mismanaged a once-mighty tech behemoth into a shadow of its former self....I can't say his departure announcement really came as much of a surprise.

    1. Anonymous Coward 101

      Re: surprised?

      "He mismanaged a once-mighty tech behemoth into a shadow of its former self"

      Profits grew big time under Balmer. Maybe they shouldn't have and maybe MS didn't deserve to earn them, but there you are.

      1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

        Signs of failure

        You are permitted to buy computers with Windows 7 pre-installed.

        OEMs dare to manufacture chromebooks.

        Windows Phone market share was 12%, now 3% - and mobile phones are a far bigger market that desktops and laptops.

        The first two would not have been tolerated a decade ago. Mobile phones were a vital strategic target that now belongs to Samsung and Apple. The best Microsoft can say is 'We are aiming for third place'.

        1. hoverboy

          Re: Signs of failure

          You are wrong. Read the news. WP8 is firmly in 3rd place overall and in many countries it is ahead of iOS. Over 100% YoY growth too. I can provide citations, where are yours?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Signs of failure

            YoY growth is a useless statistic when comparing to other manufactures. For example, I sold 1 unit last year and 3 this year, I have over 100% YoY growth. My competitor sold 10 last year and 5 this year, 50% compared to last year.

            By this statistic, my competitor did worse than I despite selling more products and earning more profit.

            1. Keep Refrigerated

              Re: Signs of failure

              YoY growth is good for personal milestone measuring... but not a useful statistic against competition.

            2. h4rm0ny

              Re: Signs of failure

              >>"YoY growth is a useless statistic when comparing to other manufactures."

              But not a useless statistic. It shows that a product is establishing itself and not going anywhere. And given all the crap people kept talking about WP in its first couple of years about how it was a dead end, would die off, lack of support, could never become a real contender, Year on Year growth is a counter argument to all that hate. Because so long as it keeps growing in a market that is slowing (there is less and less low-hanging fruit of people who don't have a smartphone every year), then it is establishing itself and it is doing well.

          2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

            I do read the news

            People do not read the adverts beside articles on the internet any more. These days the article is the advert. WP articles adverts are easy to recognise. They will show year on year growth without mentioning the tiny market share. They will mention units sold without multiplying by average selling price or mentioning installed base. I am sure you can provide citations of these adverts.

            WP installed base is fifth, behind Symbian and Blackberry.

            http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2013/11/bloodbath-year-four-smartphones-galore-q3-results-all-market-shares.html

            Despite heavy discounting and subsidies, WP is in decline:

            http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2014/01/23/just-how-much-brand-damage-is-microsoft-doing-to-nokia/

            Nokia gets hefty subsidies, sells its head office (and counts the sale as a smart phone) and still makes a thundering loss on each phone. No-one else wants to 'compete' with that.

            http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/04/nokia-sells-head-office-building-for-222-million-should-keep-company-afloat-for-another-few-months/

            Even if there weren't 101 reasons not to buy a Windows Phone, the carriers will not let Microsoft in the door. Microsoft own Skype, which the carriers loathe with a fiery passion. Elop complained about lack of support from the carriers caused by the doubly indirect connection with Skype. I do not see the carriers lining up to sell Windows phones now that Microsoft has bought Nokia's handset division.

            http://www.mobot.net/101-reasons-buy-windows-phone-7-5-device-ouch/3

            By comparison, Google is selling Motorola, so will no longer be competing directly against its own manufacturing partners. Microsoft maintain their high profits despite falling market share by increasing prices. If things carry on as they are now, this will take them out of the phone market, the home computer market and the small business market. Only multinationals and governments will be able to afford lock-in prices. The other choice is to compete on price (free) which trashes their traditional (enormous) revenue stream. Anyone trying to give Microsoft as mass market future will be fired for slaughtering the cash cow.

            I am sure Nadella will be stretched in opposite directions just like Ballmer was. If he follows the contradictory requirements, I expect more adverts telling us how Microsoft is selling more WP9 than any other manufacturer, that profit margins are up and that they are successfully skimming more and more profit from their surviving business partners.

  9. Levente Szileszky

    Elop, Ballmer's hitman never had a chance...

    ..., he is just another corporate beancounter like Ballmer with similarly zero relevant experience, he never had a chance against Nadella - nor did any outsider as long as Gates & Ballmer stayed on, no big CEO would come over from their cushy jobs and try to perform a full makeover with these two watching over their shoulder, no way.

    The selection of the former head of the Server & Tools unit was the most obvious choice, I always said it, among his peers (business division chiefs) he and his team were the most solid yet most innovative performers he has a drama-free, no-nonsense, low-key style, with no grandstanding while delivering junk that forces the entire company to go along with stupid decisions product after product (a' la Sinofsky & Office, Windows etc) and he is an ENGINEER, fergadsakes - enough of this onslaught of *&^%$ stupid, loudmouthed yet clueless, arrogant, fat@ss MBA-types, sales clowns, beancounters and their ilks!

  10. Crafty volt 7

    Mega Hard

    Change company name to Mega Hard

    Trash that stupid Windows 8.x GUI

    Start selling Windows on Store for $39 up to $99 for ultimate

    Start selling office apps for $29 each

    Start selling Windows server STD from $69 through $99

    Watch the world turn Mega Hard

    1. Irongut

      Re: Mega Hard

      Elop is that you?

    2. hoverboy

      Re: Mega Hard

      Haha! Kind of with you except that I *like* the tiles.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Paris Hilton

        Re: Mega Hard

        Windows comes with STDs now? Ye gods!

  11. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    What Ballsup Balmer actually said was...

    “He has a remarkable ability to see what's going on in the market, to sense opportunity, and to really understand how we come together at Microsoft to execute against those opportunities in a collaborative way, err... in a similar way that I totally haven't done since during my days in tenure. I mean the market told us it really didn't want Kinect v1 - but they know nothing so we told them that they had to have it and pony up another $100 for the privilege, err... it's great... no, it really is... honestly."

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