Satya Nadella Is Officially Microsoft’s New CEO

Microsoft has made official what we all pretty much expected: Its new CEO, replacing Steve Ballmer, is Satya Nadella. Nadella has spent 22 years at Microsoft, and was previously Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise. Nadella also takes a position on Microsoft’s Board of Directors.

Nadella is credited with being a key leader in moving the company towards cloud services, around products including Bing, Xbox and Microsoft Office. His time at MS oversaw a period of huge growth for Microsoft Business Services, too, growing that segment of the business from a $1.5 billion slice of pie to a $5 billion segment in just five years’ time.

In an email to Microsoft employees published by the company, Steve Ballmer announced the news and said he was “pumped about the future of Microsoft” (typical Ballmer, we’ll miss you big guy). He praises Nadella’s technical and business skills, and gets surface-level emotion about Microsoft’s big, bold moves.

The appointment of Nadella could signal a doubling down on its Server and Tools business, which is now a $19 billion piece of Microsoft’s overall revenue picture. The new CEO was also instrumental in Microsoft’s work around digital rights management and interactive TV, however, and as mentioned he also works with the Xbox division, so he’s a more well-rounded pic for the top spot than many may realize.

Alongside the news of Nadella’s appointment, Microsoft also announced that founder and former CEO Bill Gates will be joining as “Founder and Technology Advisor,” a role that will see him take a more active hand in product development. The move seems designed to offset any perception of Nadella’s inexperience on the hardware side, and indeed, the team should be a formidable one if Gates is really going to be spending more time off the bench.

Nadella is only the third person to occupy Microsoft’s CEO role in 39 years, preceded by Ballmer who filled the role between January 2000 and January 2014 and Gates, who led the company between 1975 and 2000. Adapted from techcrunch.com

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