“Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally has been topping lists as the most desirable candidate to take the reins from Steve Ballmer at Microsoft, but the odds are going down on the 68-year-old executive leaving the automaker,” Dan Farber reports for CNET.
“‘Alan is staying through the end of 2014 and that’s all I know,’ company board director Edsel Ford II, great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, told Bloomberg. ‘Frankly, he has told us that his plan is to stay with Ford through the end of 2014,’ Farber reports. “Speaking on Bloomberg TV on Thursday, Mulally said he planned to stay at Ford. ‘I love serving Ford, and there is no change in the plan.'”
“Last week, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft’s board was leaning toward Mulally or Satya Nadella, vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group,” Farber reports. “Also on the final candidate list are Stephen Elop, a former Microsoft executive and outgoing Nokia CEO, and Tony Bates, a former Skype executive who now heads up Microsoft business development.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Bring on The Flop™!
What, no volunteers to take over as captain of the Titanic? I’m shocked!
Have they asked Thorsten Heins? He’s sure qualified in taking over a rudderless ship and running it into the ground.
Yes like CEO (Clueless Empty Operator) Ballmer T. Clown who has “Iceberg’s Disease”‘ an affliction where the sufferer cannot see himself steaming straight into one until it’s too late, all the while neatly organizing the chairs and then throwing them.
Oh, there are PLENTY of volunteers. You get a sh!tload of stock, good salary and bonus. And when the titanic goes down, you get to move on to another CEO job with tons of valuable experience leading a large corporation through a difficult stage.
MS needs to hire One of the three stooges. Enderle, Dvorak or Thurrott. One of those experts should get the job done!
You mean “finish the job!”
Yes that’s it!
…besieged on all sides, the beleaguered Microsoft board circled the big-assed tables and begged outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer to stick around for another year.
Someone from GM would be better. They have a history of trying to recover from flops.
Now that Mulally’s out, short-listed VP Satya Nadella (Cloud and Enterprise) looks like a shoo-in. Bates is essentially an outsider, and Elop is a loser — the board won’t want to take on more water by bringing back that guy.
Don’t forget, Microsoft is a useful ally in the struggle against the real threat: Google. Already, Microsoft’s running that Scroogled campaign to unmask them, and has formed defensive patent consortiums with Apple and other firms. And its newly acquired Lumia phones may yet gain traction against Android.
After peeking at the secret labs of the two companies — an electronic bra in one, spy gear in the other — I’d be more inclined to worry about the latter. Microsoft: always good for a chuckle.
People in Detroit want him to say right where he is.
People who buy Fords want him out so that somebody less enamoured with Microsoft might adopt a different operating system for Ford cars which actually works.
I buy ford vehicles. The tech that operates the overpriced and quickly outdated head units is way down the list of considerations when buying a vehicle. Mulally has been nothing short of great as CEO of ford.
Ballmer will have a change of heart at the last minute and will stay at the sinking helm.
You know what? I’ve had a iPod for a long time and an iPhone since ’08 and an iPad since it first came out but I’m a recent convert to an iMac (dec 12) and today I was using both my iMac and my win 7 laptop and I was stunned at how much easier it was to do stuff on the Mac.
I’ve come to the conclusion it really doesn’t matter who becomes the next CEO of MS, they have already blown it.
Why don’t they send Jony Ive over? He has an established proven track record for screwing up perfectly good working software and replacing it with overly thin fonts turd. Just perfect for Microsoft.
shut up and buy a windows phone, ya whiner!
Remember all those losers who used to make a post on every unrelated topic and somehow mention reflective screens ? They’ve resurfaced and are being just as ineffective as before.
Wow so they were planning to replace the old guard with the even older guard then. Don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Mulally would be the perfect CEO of Microsoft.
He thinks like Ballmer. “I have a great idea! Let’s put Windows in Fords.”
As long as it takes would continue without a break.
Fords had windows before Microsoft.
why would you want to switch to running a crappy software company when you can just stay home and run a crappy car company instead.
I’d do it …. for $1 mmmiiiiiiiillllllliiiioooonn dollars (putting pinky up to my mouth)
I’d secure that million, and then run away 🙂
As long as Ballmer stays on long enough to finish the MS wonder bra the world will be OK!