Microsoft's next CEO: Let's handicap the candidates

August 23, 2013

Who will replace Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer? Microsoft’s executive committee has up to a year to decide and a pantheon of candidates from which to choose. In many ways, identifying the next chief executive of Microsoft is a commentary on Microsoft’s current track record. Does Microsoft’s executive committee and board continue down the path that Ballmer began? Has the company failed to execute in some way? Or is a new direction required, perhaps with an emphasis on a particular business segment? All of these questions could guide Microsoft’s CEO search. Ballmer’s announcement that he will step down in twelve months came as a welcome surprise to Wall Street, which promptly sent Microsoft’s share price up about 6 percent. Microsoft has struggled to convince the market that its vision for Windows has been the right one, and the planned Windows 8.1 update is seen as a do-over of sorts. Ballmer shook up its leadership team this summer,re-aligning the company with his vision of Microsoft as a devices and services provider. The problem? The “flat” structure of the reorganization left no obvious successor. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2047334/microsofts-next-ceo-lets-handicap-the-candidates.html#tk.rss_all