“Microsoft Corp.’s board is considering Qualcomm Inc. Chief Operating Officer Steve Mollenkopf among candidates to replace Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, said people familiar with the matter,” Dina Bass, Beth Jinks and Ian King report for Bloomberg.
“Mollenkopf is on a list of several candidates who are under serious consideration as the board works to make a decision on CEO as early as this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the process is confidential,” Bass, Jinks and King report. “That list also includes Microsoft executive Satya Nadella and other outside candidates, said one of the people.”
“Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally’s candidacy for Microsoft’s top job has faded in the last two weeks amid concerns about his lack of technology experience, said three of the people. There are still scenarios in which the board could opt for Mulally, including one in which he takes the job for several years and helps ready an internal candidate, said one of the people,” Bass, Jinks and King report. “Last week, Ford Director Edsel Ford II said Mulally will stay at the automaker through 2014. ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Come on, MSFT BoD, stop wasting time, just go with The Flop™ already!
Related article:
Ford’s Alan Mulally not looking likely as Microsoft CEO – December 5, 2013
Is there not someone at MS who is about 45 and has been there 15 or more years and is capable to lead that company?
There probably is, to answer your question. Mollenkopf would be a dumpkof to accept the job, but hey! money turns the best of men/women into dumpkofs, mollenkopf or not! 🙂
Eastman Kodak went through a parade of CEOs who were supposed to ‘Save The Company’. The CEOs made lots of money failing at their jobs. We never heard of any of them again, but what do they care? They’re millionaires.
That’s endearing, your forced witness to the dissolution of a once-proud company due to incompetence, as I have witnessed the like multiple times as a consultant. My not being in the immediate family as you were made it no less disturbing, no less emotional. When you hire on, you want the team to succeed. BTW there is something very wrong with the theory of compensation as motivation, especially with CEOs. Has that ever really worked? Or is it just the biggest bamboozlement of them all?
The question that should be asked is, “Why didn’t Microsoft have a succession plan in place?” Jobs provided for his company, supporting it up to the last minute and establishing a management team with the ability to continue and extend the legacy of a great technology company. Ballmer sweated and paraded on stage and milked his company for uncounted $M while leaving it unprepared for the future, rudderless and adrift.
That contrast, alone, tells you all that you need to know about these two companies and their senior management.
Isn’t asking someone to be CEO of Microsoft a little like asking someone to be Captain of an already sinking ship? (THE – Thorsten Heins Effect?)
Q: Are Windows RT slabs still for sale?
A: Yes.
I.E. Microsoft suffers from serious denial of its own incompetence. Someone highly delusional is required as their next CEO. Leaders with clear vision, perception and insight need not apply.
Yeah being CEO of Microsoft will no doubt be career suicide for the smarter guys & gals who realize that, which will reduce the list to even further incompetent choices. Maybe Paul Reubens is available. HA-HAH!
This position has to be a poisoned chalice for anyone. Microsoft’s future, as it is currently laid out, is to milk the Office and server apps business, along with the dwindling Windows franchise, for as long as possible. Microsoft is competitive, but not very profitably so, in the gaming franchise and has, at last, an acceptable phone OS (but few apps). In tablets, Microsoft continues to mis-step and, in any case, the horse has bolted (and Apple is not only a very swift horse, but they are headed in the right direction).
Microsoft might be best seen as a break-up opportunity, with gaming, Office, Server apps (including financials) sold off and then ported to OS/X, Linux and IOS (even Android perhaps, though I suspect Android will disappear in the next three years, if not sooner).
Windows is old and very, very, tired. It needs a rewrite from the ground up, but its probably not worth contemplating in a world where desktops, even notebooks, are in decline and IOS controls the mobile market.
Microsoft may as well cede the desktop to OS/X and slim down the Windows business to focus on servers and a declning desktop/notebook franchise.
Every dog has its day. Microsoft’s day has come and gone.
Windows is old and very, very, tired. It needs a rewrite from the ground up
Vista was supposed to be that rewrite. It took 7 years for it NOT to happen. MS tossed in a better kernel and worse everything else.
Will MS attempt yet another rewrite from the ground up? Not-a-chance. It’s literally impossible. Someday the Windows patched up spaghetti code will be in a museum of technology shame as THE prime example of how NOT to code. School children will bring eggs with them to throw at the exhibit while their teachers cheer them on. Taking a dump and a pee on the exhibit will be prohibited for sanitation reasons. 😀
And yet Windows cannot continue forever in it’s current form. Microsoft will have to rewrite at some point. OSX is ahead of this game thankfully but certainly can be improved.
If Bill Gates stepped down, the selection list would treble over night.
Plenty of people would love the challenge of reinventing Microsoft, but they don’t get full autonomy of Microsoft, unless Bill Gates is forced out.
Once that happens, Alan Kay will become the guiding light in Redmond and Microsoft will finally rebrand Xbox as a personal computer.
@G$Dualie. Visualizing your statement has rendered me helpless with laughter! Bill gates retire??? What a quaint thought!!!
Well shucks.
DynaBox!
Only if it’s made of glass and contains a backlit green liquid.
“MSFT BoD” is that … Bluescreen of Death 😂
I’ll get me coat …
Why did Mullaly pick Sync, “about his lack of technology experience,…”
That could perfectly fit!
If translated, Mollenkopft = Slackhead!
That’s exactly what MS needs nowadays!
😀
The stated reasons for rejecting Mullaly are clearly bogus. His age has always been known and his lack of technical expertise was also known from the outset. I suspect that the real reason is that he doesn’t want the job after all and they’re now trying to imply that he couldn’t have had it anyway. It’s a bit like two teenagers who split up and each posts on FaceBook that they’ve dumped the other.
It’s pretty obvious that Microsoft needs to be seriously shaken up and pointed in a different direction. Only an external candidate is likely to be able to do that, but even then, they will have to overcome considerable ( to put it mildly ) inertia from Bill Gates and the rest of Microsoft. A CEO needs to be very astute and anybody astute enough to be considered as CEO of Microsoft will also be astute enough to realise that with things as they currently are, the job will be extremely challenging – to the point of being near-impossible and that spectacular failure is a real possibility.
I think that the only scenario that might work for Microsoft is to appoint a CEO who attempts to turn the company around, but fails ( I’m looking at you Elop ). Then when that CEO is booted out, they can appoint a better CEO who can then continue the turnaround, building on the changes that the previous CEO started, but not getting the blame for those changes. When Ballmer’s successor continues the decline, the company as a whole will come to realise that serious changes really do need to happen and that’s where the next CEO comes in. At the moment, the company is still doing well enough that blinkered people can believe that it’s doing OK and therefore will continue to do OK. That complacency could kill the company.
Is Steve Ballmer now going to take a job in the auto industry? Probably not.
Microsoft needs to promote from within, or perhaps someone from the past.
With Steven Sinofsky out of the picture and Steve Ballmer now stepping down, Ray Ozzie gets my vote as new CEO of Microsoft. He assumed the role of Bill Gates when Gates stepped down and he is a software guy after all. Read more…