Satya Nadella profile is low key just like the new Microsoft CEO himself. Reports surrounding his appointment have also suppressed controversy over former CEO Steve Ballmer, who took the hit for ailing Microsoft's products like Windows phone.
After a teary eyed farewell to employees last year, Ballmer still voiced the slogan loved this company." For those who were watching, the 'Ballmer dance' as his stage speech's are called was a little far-fetched.
In reality, the Board of Directors at Microsoft were unhappy with the company stock price. They were looking for someone else to lead the Redmond St. firm and now they have found something different in Indian-born, Satya Nadella.
What's the comparison between Ballmeer and Nadella? Reports say a receding hairline."Nadella couldn't be more different from his predecessor in both demeanor and appearance," Engadget CHRISTOPHER TROUT reported.
Nadell worked at Sun Microsystems before joining Microsoft in 1992. During his tenure in Redmond, Nadella focused on enterprise projects like search and cloud services. COO Kevin Turner highlighted company earnings from these areas, which catapulted Nadella in a list of 100 contenders for CEO.
"Our commercial cloud services revenue grew more than 100 percent year-over-year, as customers are embracing Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM Online, and making long-term commitments to the Microsoft platform," Turner explained. Since Microsoft is a services and device firm, Nadella's expertise in business solutions and software is one-sided and the company still needs to gain foothold in the consumer services market.
This was evidenced by poor sales trailing Google and Apple. Analysts point out that if Microsoft does not find a way for seamless integration of mobile computing pioneered by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the Windows phone business is at risk.
One challenge set out for Nadella will be to tie up "loose ends" like the "the Nokia acquisition, turning Microsoft into a provider of services and hardware, and playing catch-up to the likes of Apple, Google and Amazon". Some analysts say that choosing Nadella is going with a 'safety choice' since Microsoft may be in need of overhauling at several ends.
When asked if Microsoft is capable of embracing the future of technology, Nadella responded, "We have to. There is no other answer in this business than to say you renew yourself every day. And sometimes you're successful and sometimes you're not, but it's the average that counts. We wouldn't be here 30 years since our founding if we were not able to ride the new waves of technology ... The fact that we have the capability that allows us to go and hunt for the new concept is the key to this business and longevity," Engadget quoted him as saying.
Two popular discussions ongoing about Nadella are his low-key profile and the comparison to Ballmer, whose chest pounding, foot thumping, visceral 'pump-me-ups' have been motivation drives for Redmond employers for the last 13 years or so.
The board's decision to move toward a technical leader suggest that there is more to motivation than public speaking; it requires the know-how, courage to face challenges in hard times and rebound from rockbottom. BBC and Indian news media have expressed pride in Nadella's Hyderabad roots. So much so that one report put down Indian entrepreneurial values as evidence of 'not taking risks, and putting up with mediocrity.' The comparison has been made to the Indian government and its officials too saying that they are not rising to the moment and that Nadella's appointment is a harsh reality of talented scientists leaving the homeland for better opportunities.
"Nadella's elevation makes him the highest-ranked executive of Indian origin in the corporate world, ahead of such familiar names as Pepsico's Indra Nooyi and Mastercard's Ajay Banga," The Times of India reported.
Nadella earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from (that other MIT) Manipal Institute of Technology. He then went on to collect a master's degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and an MBA from the University of Chicago. By contrast, Detroit-born Ballmer earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and economics from Harvard and after a two-year stint at Procter & Gamble, attended Stanford's MBA program only to drop out and begin his decades-long tenure at Microsoft. Ballmer was a businessman at a tech company. Nadella is an engineer with a business background," Engadget revealed about Nadella's profile.
Perhaps the biggest challenge that Nadella faces, with or without Gates who assumes to reflect more interest in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation than Microsoft, is to give the company 'the edge that it lacked' under Ballmer, BBC News reported.
"He is a visionary, has passion for change, is making it happen and knows what it takes to drive change in the unique Microsoft culture," said Forrester analyst James Staten. "An outsider would have a hard time accomplishing this coming in fresh. And time is of the essence."
Here's a video of Bill Gates welcoming Satya to the Redmond community.
