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Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
- w-m 13y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8JwNZBJ_wI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8JwNZBJ_wI Interesting that they chose a walk and talk kind of thing, in a completely vacant office. What where they hurrying towards that they couldn't take the time to sit down?
- m_mueller 13y agoIt made me think of the logistics behind the video. "Hey everyone, the hallway is closed off for the next two hours because we want to show our new leader in an environment completely devoid of people." Am I too cynical?
- pistle 13y agoCamera and sound deserve some respect for walking backwards that whole time. Sure, they're pros, but that was a long and winding walk.
- hamburglar 13y agoI don't recognize the building, but the layout is reminiscent of their Conference Center, with its very wide, open hallways and no personal offices. Every time I ever went in there when there wasn't a big event happening, it was vacant just like that. It wouldn't really have been any effort at all to reserve it for filming. [edit: as to why they'd want to show them wandering around in a vacant building, I have no idea other than pure aesthetics] I was just disappointed he didn't hop on the vespa and putter away at the end.
- chollida1 13y agoThe bigger news here might be that Bill Gates has stepped down from his role as Chairman of the board! Although this has been rumored to happen for some time, its still a big "changing of the guard" step for Microsoft. Good luck to Bill in his new roll on the Board as "Founder and Technology Advisor".
- fro 13y agoA step down from chairman, but a step up in involvement. Gates says he will be "substantially increasing the time that I spend at the company."
- skywhopper 13y agoI hope that this is just doublespeak to reassure people who think Gates is important to Microsoft's future success. Personally, I think both Microsoft and the world would be better off if Gates stepped away completely and focussed all of his efforts on the Gates Foundation's work.
- moron4hire 13y agoI understood the Foundation's primary problem to be figuring out how to efficiently spend all of their money they are required to spend every year without accidentally funding Al Qaeda. Does Gates have to be around for that?
- raverbashing 13y agoI don't know, but unfortunately I am very skeptical of NGOs, and charities It looks like 80% of the money goes for "management" and the rest goes to the actual people in need. Not to mention the contracted "fundraisers" that are paid poorly. (I have nothing against the fundraisers per se, they're usually college kids trying to make some money)
- batmansbelt 13y agoIt's true that governments are much more efficient at delivering funds than charities. It's an economy of scale. Also governments have a lot more oversight than charities do.
- moron4hire 13y agoThat is the complete, 100% opposite of reality. Charities have tons of reporting requirements that they have to meet to demonstrate--to the government--that they aren't at least a money laundering operation, say nothing about using the funds appropriately. There is no such equivalent oversight of government bureaus.
- scotth 13y agoI'm curious about his accent. It sounds like it would've taken a lot of work to develop. Is sounding American-ish a requirement of rising to the upper echelons of a company like Microsoft?
- chunky1994 13y agoHe's been in the U.S since his masters, an accent change over that many years is quite natural, and hardly has anything do with the fact that he's in a high powered position in the company.
- Varcht 13y agoIs it racist to not understand half of what is said through a thick accent? if it is I'm a big jerk. edit: why the down votes? Honest question, parent seems to be implying that its a bad thing that he adjusted to his environment, an environment where clear communication is paramount,.
- ef47d35620c1 13y agoWe all have accents whether we were born in America or not. Have you ever been in the South? Just because we talk slow doesn't mean we think slow ;) Typically, it just requires spending time around the person and interacting with them. It doesn't matter where they are from or what sort of accent they have. After a few days, you'll understand them. And also, an accent has no bearing on intelligence.
- Varcht 13y agoThis is not always the case, for instance I've worked with a great guy from China, after almost a year I still have a hard time understanding him and often have to ask him to repeat himself. It makes working collaborating difficult face to face.
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoMy Argentinian TA once said "if I have an accent and you have an accent, we might have a problem." That said, all my coworkers are Chinese (many have never been to the states or outside of china) and I don't have a problem with anyone's accent (they can barely understand my Chinese though).
- csmithuk 13y agoI'll be more interested when he unleashes his "arse kicking" on the company and starts pushing roadmaps out. That's a make or break moment for a lot of us involved in Microsoft's ecosystem.
- leobelle 13y agoYou know for the first time in a very long time I actually want to make Windows software. It's not really Microsoft's fault though. I really like twitch.tv, and streaming games from Windows is really easy thanks to OBS. I want to build stuff that makes user and streamer interaction easier via OBS on Windows. I wouldn't put it in the Windows store though. Heh.
- Ambrosia 13y agoOBS is currently being rewritten to be cross platform and because the old codebase was pretty bad, so I guess you could contribute https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio
- leobelle 13y agoIt looks like Microsoft is starting to head in a better direction given their backtracking on "metro" style for desktop applications. I hope they develop more software for non-Windows devices. I really wouldn't mind using Microsoft software on non-Windows. I only use Windows for testing and gaming. I wish Nadella and Microsoft luck, and hope they make a real turn around. As a side note it is also exciting to see some more diversity in the top ranks of one of our biggest technology companies. If I were a young aspiring engineer from India, or anywhere in the world really, I'd feel pretty good about the future right now. Also amazing is that they're publishing and embedding Google YouTube videos on that page.
- skrebbel 13y ago> As a side note it is also exciting to see some more diversity in the top ranks of one of our biggest technology companies. Because true diversity is people who look different!
- solaris152000 13y agoThe email on his first day is an interesting read: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/feb14/02-04mail2.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/feb14/02-04ma...
- fireix 13y agoWhat is a good change here is simplicity of language & clarity - Who Am I?, Why am I here, Why are you here and What do we do next. A good departure from corporate bs that is spewed when there is a change of guard. That said Satya Nadella has a task like none other in the business. Good Luck to Satya and MSFT.
- cygwin98 13y agoHis tone sounds like a project manager, well, maybe CEO as a role in big corps like MSFT is a glorified PM on a larger scale.
- acqq 13y agoSo his visions are "mobile and cloud-first" and "enable" customers to "do more." Still a bit less buzzwordy than Ballmer.
- nailer 13y agoMobile and cloud first could be emphasizing being where customers want Microsoft to be, rather than Windows, which has a tiny portion of mobile and cloud. Microsoft already produce some apps for the web, iOS and Android, and Azure can run Linux VMs. Hopefully they just go wherever people want to pay them, eg, to access MS Office where they need it, even if it isn't via a Windows device.
- venomsnake 13y agoIt is interesting how devoid of content it is. I think that much better way to motivate the troops is to give tangible goals and be brief. Anyway good luck be with him - from what I read in his bio he was heading the only part of MS recently that managed to not alienate its customer and developer base.
- camus2 13y agoWell Congrats to their new CEO, there is a lot of work to do to put MSFT on the right path for the future. The industry has changed, consumers have changed, MSFT needs to evolve too.
- sergiotapia 13y agoWill he be able to unify the entire Microsoft experience into something amazing? I'm excited! New blood will surely bring in fresh ideas and approaches - I hope Microsoft manages to raise the bar even higher and make me an MS evangelist again.
- michaelhoffman 13y agoJohn W. Thompson was once general manager of the division of IBM that produced OS/2[1], which was soundly defeated by Microsoft. I wonder how he feels about being chairman of Microsoft now given that previous experience. [1] Around this time, he reported to an executive named John M. Thompson, hence the use of middle initials.
- moron4hire 13y agoHe is probably a professional who understands how business works and doesn't think anything about it.
- ebbv 13y agoIt's all well and good to recognize that he clearly hasn't let his personal feelings about his past project's destruction hinder his career. That's an admirable quality in him and worth noting. It's another thing to pretend he's a robot and has no feelings on the matter, which is what you're implying. I think the original question is a valid one. Clearly he would have thoughts on the matter and they may be interesting to hear.
- moron4hire 13y agoOr perhaps it's not as big of a deal to him now as it is to you.
- rbanffy 13y agoAnother way you can read it is with a comparison with Stephen Elop and Rick Belluzzo. Could he have intentionally mis-managed OS/2 leaving the space open for Windows 3, being then rewarded by a position at Microsoft's board? I know nothing about his career or his decisions WRT the OS/2 product, but, after having a closer look at the other two, a pattern of executive placement as an offensive weapon starts to form. edit: minor clarifications
- shadowfox 13y ago
- gesman 13y agoGood luck, commander! Scrap Ballmer's toys and go after the big enterprise boys. That's where the money is :)
- rbanffy 13y agoIndeed. Enterprise is where Microsoft has the most traction, and benefits most inertia and lock-in. It faces competition from SaaS companies, but that's an unavoidable transition Microsoft will have to make.
- rossjudson 13y agoOffice 365 seems to be doing very well. In that case, it's the SaaS companies that should be deeply afraid of Microsoft. As a total offering (consisting of cloud components and PC-based components) it's pretty hard to beat. Running O365 on Azure has probably substantially improved the platform. I can't see why Microsoft would take the slightest interest in the mobile software world of 100,000 different $1 crapware products. There's no money in it. Rovio is one of the most successful mobile developers there is, with annual income of $150 million, across pretty much every mobile platform. They're great at it. $150 million isn't even visible next to Microsoft's $60 billion yearly income.
- soDotNet 13y agoI think MS had disregard the enterprise/line of business apps a long time ago. There is no talk about WPF. It's all about apps and mobile. HTML5/JS and not a lot of xaml. I can't find a article or blog about WPF that is written after 2011. What's the future of WPF? What's the road map?
- Aqwis 13y agoThe most interesting thing on this page is that the videos are hosted on YouTube.
- dudus 13y agothis might be a good sign.
- izolate 13y agoI don't want to jump to conclusions, but after watching the video I have a really good feeling about Satya. He doesn't strike me as a neurotic Microsoft evangelist salesman like Steve Ballmer. I would love to see Nadella's Microsoft get more involved in open source projects, and win back some developer love that has become lost in darker years.
- dudus 13y agothis might be a good sign.
- isaacjohnwesley 13y agoSatya Nadella 'made in INDIA'. Proud moments.
- yrochat 13y ago> He joined Microsoft 22 years ago because he saw how clearly Microsoft empowers people to do magical things and ultimately make the world a better place. Bad start.
- johsoe 13y agoWhy? Don't think of Microsoft as it is now, think of it as it was 22 years ago.
- commandar 13y agoExactly. That was a few years before Microsoft has succeeded at their mission of putting a computer on every desktop.
- wtbob 13y agoTwenty-two years ago, Windows 95 was three years in the future. As I recall, Microsoft's only truly great product was Word (Excel was getting there, I think), although I guess Flight Simulator wasn't too bad. Microsoft was trying to pretend that Windows 3.1 was a competitor to the Mac. Lisp machines were still trying to make a go of it.
- r00fus 13y agoIn 1991, Microsoft was already ascendant. You may be too young to remember, but MS-DOS was everywhere. Given the failures of Commodore and Atari, the rise and fall of the 80's unix wars, and with Jobs no longer at Apple, Microsoft essentially took visionary leadership of the computing scene by default. Instead of using proper unix machines, my early computing years were spent on DOS and Win 3.1.
- wtbob 13y agoI was around back then, and was using Macs and Unix, looking down on folks for using Windows & DOS. To this day, I can't begin to fathom the sort of mindset it takes to settle for worst. I certainly would not have agreed that Microsoft ca. 1992 was at all visionary. I felt embarrassed for them and their users back then, much as I would for an adult who shows up at the office proud of the childish fingerpainting he spent the last month making. Grasping, copying, but not visionary.
- dodyg 13y agoMicrosoft is back being led by a tech guy. This is awesome.
- surana90 13y agoDo people here understand what Test Cricket is? #justchecking
- untog 13y agoUnit testing framework, right?
- reddit_clone 13y agoEven people in India barely remember it any more. Now a days its all about 20/20 and instant gratification.
- JSno 13y agoMS is going down. No doubt. Look at Motorola and Adobe.
- michaelwww 13y agoRecord revenue and profits indicate otherwise
- hatred 13y agoWell I can't speak about Motorola but the stock price of ADBE of late suggests pretty strongly otherwise for a dying company.
- cygwin98 13y agoAdobe is the monopoly in the desktop graphics tool market. Not sure why no VC targets it at this moment, which does seem like a slow dinosaur to attack on.
- dserban 13y ago"Once open-source gets good enough, you'd be crazy to compete with it." -Larry Ellison Any startup that sets out to recreate Photoshop would also compete with GIMP and Pixelmator.
- nailer 13y agoPixelmator's proprietary, and can't run on non OS X ATM due to reliance on, IIRC, CoreGraphics or similar. If they recreated those libraries on other platforms they may have a PS competitor. GIMP is poor quality.
- CamperBob2 13y agoPatents.
- JSno 13y agoright. But barely no one likes Adobe flash. Their software quality is getting lower and lower. Too much bureaucracy always shown in these companies.
- keithpeter 13y ago"Microsoft’s new CEO finds relaxation by reading poetry, in all forms and by poets who are both Indian and American." Wonder if he has read Vikram Seth's Golden Gate. Looks to be an interesting person despite the corpspeak.
- Udo 13y agoThere's something deeply symbolic about watching those enthusiastic people doing their Sorkin walks for the camera through the vast and completely empty halls of the Microsoft offices (or is it a museum, I can't tell). By the numbers, Microsoft is still incredibly relevant. At the same time, I can't even remember when I last used any MS product. It's not a boycott, there are simply no points where their stuff intersects with my life. I can imagine I'm not the only one, and that's not a comfortable position to be in for them. However, it's also difficult to see how they could ever break out of that. From where I'm standing they look like a partly consumer-focused IBM: rich, powerful, calcified, eternal, but computing has largely moved on and left them behind. As a former MS user, I wish them all the success in the world turning this around.
- ryanjshaw 13y agoYou probably use services running on Microsoft-based platforms all the time if you e.g. have a bank account, use commercial airports, have insurance of any form, etc. Those big numbers you're waving away represent real, significant businesses.
- Udo 13y agoEven if you assume I didn't know that (which is somewhat audacious of you), this sounds exactly like IBM. Which was my point, and I'm not waving anything away. I guess there's nothing wrong with being another IBM per se, on the other hand they wouldn't have had to change CEOs if they were all that satisfied with their general trajectory.
- ryanjshaw 13y agoI'm not assuming anything, I'm reading what you wrote: > there are simply no points where their stuff intersects with my life. As to your other point: Microsoft is big. A "general trajectory" is very vague at their scale. Failure in one area (mobile, tablet) does not imply failure in another (enterprise), or indeed overall. I don't see what's wrong with trying to find a CEO who can turnaround that failure, and don't think it's really indicative of anything other than a missed opportunity.
- fromdoon 13y agoJust asking, how can a new CEO change Microsoft's directions. Or What suggestions would you give Satya, if you were to meet him today?
- Udo 13y agoI'd say, from my armchair: take a long hard look at what's really happening out there, step out of your bubble. Stop this ridiculous attitude towards competitors and open source, at least long enough to see what they have to offer. Get your people some Macs, get your server people exposed to some Linux, get them some iPhones and iPads and Android devices, and make them see why you've been losing ground. Those competitors aren't perfect, they all have distinct and horrible weaknesses that you can exploit by making something better. Step out of your bubble and make something.
- timrichard 13y agoI think they did get some iPads at one point :-) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/07/ipad_theft_microsoft_campus/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/07/ipad_theft_microsoft...
- sixothree 13y agoIt has always seemed to me that Microsoft treats every product, company, or standard that is not theirs as if they were direct competition.
- cgh 13y agoI am no fan of MS given what I went through with them in the '90s, but I'll give Satya the benefit of the doubt. Here's what I'd say to him: Recognise that operating systems are less relevant than they were and port everything to everywhere. This means dev tools, Office, etc. People will pay for Visual Studio on the Mac and on Linux if it's the same experience as it is on Windows. De-complexify Windows and focus on its number one use case: Office. Windows is essentially a platform for running Office and playing games. Buy Oculus VR.
- spiderPig 13y ago
- raheemm 13y agoIf he focuses the entirety of MS on cloud and mobile, while offering some level of innovation, he will have done a good job. I think the real challenge is how do you make a company whose flagships are non-mobile and non-cloud products like Office and Windows go mobile and cloud? Those are massive institutional forces of inertia.
- haakon 13y agoIn Bill Gates' video, at 0:28, does he laugh just a little bit as he says "we took advantage of the internet" when listing their historical innovations?
- spiderPig 13y agoHaha, I noticed that too! Kind of a subtle smirk.
- skywhopper 13y agoI hope the new CEO has the courage and the power to set out a vision and stick to it for more than just a few years in a row. Microsoft under Ballmer has been a study in short attention span. Changing themes, names, and directions every three to five years. When I was a Windows sysadmin back in the day, it was incredibly frustrating to build anything on the Microsoft platform because by the time you wrapped your brain around the new way of doing things, the next server OS release would change everything. From what I've seen since I moved on to a different career, that pattern hasn't changed. Apple's success has come from a laser focus and constant improvement for the past 17 years. Microsoft used to be similarly focused. Remember the old adage that Microsoft would get it right by Version Three, and wipe out the competition? Well, they haven't stuck to any particular plan for long enough to come up with a version three of anything in 15 years. Hell, Microsoft pioneered tablet computers, but after some promising early models and some decent push into the innovation required, they kind of just let that project wither on the vine until Apple came up with a workable model. Then MS desperately tried to pivot and turn everything, even the server OS, into a tablet-and-desktop-friendly mess. Remember Zune? Remember Live? Remember the Kin??
- kvb 13y agoI'm not sure this is a helpful diagnosis - Microsoft didn't have a short attention when it came to tablets (as you say, they pioneered them, and they haven't abandoned them), they just didn't get the form factor right, and many of the Live services have just been rebranded. Likewise, Apple has also demonstrated a short attention span at times. Remember Ping?
- marknutter 13y agoIt's not that they didn't get the form factor right, it's that they didn't align as a company to make sure it was a success. To my knowledge, in-fighting between different divisions in Microsoft lead to the Tablet PC's ultimate demise and as an early adopter myself I definitely felt the pain of it. Tablet pen functionality in Office was a pathetic, tacked-on afterthought, for instance.
- 13y ago
- markshepard 13y agohmm. a steve jobs like photo and vibe there..
- James_Duval 13y agoThat leapt out at me, too! The image used on his Wikipedia page is very Jobsian, too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Satya_Nadella.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Satya_Nadella.jpg
- Hacquoil 13y agoI also found it interesting that they felt the need to include a photo of Satya looking chilled out in a hoodie. Just feels really forced - it seems completely out of character based on all of his other imagery / appearances elsewhere. There is nothing wrong with the guy wearing suits to work if he wants, but it seems that they're trying unnecessarily hard to make him fit some sort of cool geek stereotype.
- RyanMcGreal 13y agoSidenote: the videos are embedded from YouTube. I'm impressed and even a bit encouraged that Microsoft set aside NIH long enough to use a competitor's product.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- MartinCron 13y agoA part of me was hoping for an outside technologist, as I'm almost instinctively suspicious of anyone who could grow and thrive in the dysfunctional stack rank regime, but this is so much better than the CEO of a soft drink company, for example.
- canistr 13y agoStack ranking is largely attributed to Lisa Brummel, Executive VP at MSFT. And it's been stated in many articles that stack ranking caters to the top 10% and nobody else.
- MartinCron 13y agoI wasn't thinking it was his idea, but he obviously did very well in the stack ranking ecosystem, which implies (among other things) looking at your own success in terms of a peer's failure.
- canistr 13y agoFor a system with a set turnover ratio, you could make a claim that everyone in the company views their own success as a result of someone else's failure. Be it a VP, GPM, Team Lead, etc. Because it happens at every level within the organization.
- frik 13y agoVideo fail: apparently Bill Gates video was filmed with a chroma-keying (blue-screen) and because of original reflections on his glasses you can now see "through his head". Look at his glasses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5BhQVuRcTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5BhQVuRcTk
- kyberias 13y agoProbably wouldn't have noticed that.
- robotic 13y agoI thought it was a reflection from a teleprompter.
- guardian5x 13y agoComment fail, this is just one of the screens there reflecting on his glasses.
- frik 13y agowrong, re-watch the video in HD full screen.
- BlackDeath3 13y agoI agree with the above. After watching the video in HD and fullscreen, it looks like the reflection of a screen more than anything else (to me). Hardly surprising, given that the hallway is covered in television monitors.
- nkerkin 13y agofrik is correct, watch around 0:40 - 0:45, it's pretty obvious.
- l0c0b0x 13y agowhat the heck is wrong with us? I was also distracted by it.
- ozim 13y agoWords of new CEO of Microsoft "I marvel every day at how people can excel..." taken out of context are hilarious when I think about all stupid stuff people do with Excel.
- Touche 13y agoI'm very skeptical of them going with someone who's been with the company that long. I think they needed an outsider. I was glad when the Sundar Pichai rumor started. Also think it's a bad thing that Gates is going to take a more active role as the technology world today is very different from when he dominated. Gates is famously (if the stories are true) the one who didn't like the Courier tablet, for example.
- mergy 13y agoHere's the concern: 1. Everyone thinks Microsoft needs a rethink. 2. Ballmer and others inside Microsoft think they did that and just need to execute on it (devices first, etc.) 3. This guy helped develop the rethink that is in-process. Any external candidates would have had to buy-in to the restructure already started but not fully executed under Ballmer. Since he was theoretically part of the changes started with Ballmer, he will continue the same agenda.
- Consultant32452 13y agoIMHO the re-think wasn't too far off. Microsoft's tablet OS is pretty nice. It was just late to the game and needs a stronger app ecosystem but they're working on that. The UI for Win8 desktop was DOA. They really over-shot there but have taken what I feel are appropriate steps to mitigate some of the damage and I think we'll see a nicer, better solution come Win9.
- mergy 13y agoI hope so. We need more competition out there and Microsoft should be in the mix. It will be interesting to see changes if Ballmer and Gates remain on the Board in some capacity.
- xmus 13y agothis new dude is going to do GREAT! ;) - looks like a Nerd (i mean the background, glasses and the sweat shit - i mean SHIRT) - don't need to sound racist but the dude is born in India! [20+ years and still has the accent] - and FINALLY, i can't stress this enough: the page introducing him looks like the iPhone5 page! PS: zoom out of the page as much as possible and his head get cut-off (the last image in the bio section) - love the background btw
- chrisjames 13y ago"Our industry does not respect tradition - it only respects innovation . . ." This strikes me as an odd thing to say, especially so given the nature of the communication. Am I alone in this thought?
- adamt 13y agoI'd never thought I'd say this after the years of aggressive (and at times anti-competitive) dominance but I think the world needs a strong Microsoft again. Although Microsoft remains very strong in the corporate world, its presence in the Internet and mobile worlds are now pretty limited and leaving the two power-houses of Google and Apple to shape the industry. Satya has done a good job with Azure, and it will be interesting to see whether he can make Microsoft more relevant to the Internet back into someone that can influence the industry.
- moistgorilla 13y agoI will switch to windows if they make it as easy to develop on as it is on unix. Maybe have a fully supported unix commandline emulator?
- sdegutis 13y agoThat's the same reason I want to switch to developing for Windows. Except, I don't consider Unix the ideal standard anymore. For instance, PowerShell isn't a real unix shell, but it seems to be a type-safe version of one with first-class access to the platform's first-class API, which is exciting.
- Aaronontheweb 13y agoOne other cool technology, originally developed as an OSS project by MSFT employees is ScriptCS: http://scriptcs.net/ http://scriptcs.net/ It can complement or replace PowerShell, but what I really like about it is that it introduces a Python-style C# REPL.
- henrikschroder 13y agoYou're conflating "easy" with "familiar".
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- pngmankwong 13y agoVery interested to see what the new CEO will bring and hopefully a much needed injection on the innovation front. His background in R&D and running the cloud divisions at Microsoft makes him a different proposition to Ballmer. I like the idea that Bill Gates can maybe combine with him as Founder and Tech advisor and balance old and new with some vision. Microsoft has lost it's way in recent years and although not a wholesale change maybe they can give it some new direction
- natch 13y agoI still feel like I don't know who this guy is. I'm sure he's awesome but a lot is left out. The MS official bio stuff says he has a family, has worked for MS for a long time, has some degrees, and loves cricket. But what has he been doing at MS for 22 years? What roles has he had?
- bitcuration 13y agoMicrosoft has a long history of being focus on the marketing of developers, even as the main strategy to prevail and control the corporate IT market. Having a CEO who shares a similar culture background as more than half the population of who currently employed in IT industry, brings to Microsoft a distinctive advantage when it comes to both selling to this market or attracting talent. Very clever move. Kudos to Bill G. On the other hand, contrary to Ballmer, the new CEO will be under strong influence of Gates and the investors.
- vividmind 13y agoI noticed the following sentence in Balmer's email to employees (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/feb14/02-04mail1.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/feb14/02-04ma...): I love the breadth and the diversity of all of the customers we empower, from students in the classroom to consumers to small businesses to governments to the largest enterprises. It's interesting to see the governments standing between small businesses and large enterprises in the minds of such men.
- dragonwriter 13y agoEven for governments that are bigger than large private industries in scale, they often make IT purchasing decisions at a lower level of the organization which makes the effective scale as a purchasing entity smaller; so, there may well be a sensible business reason for this ordering.
- kyro 13y agoCan someone in the know shed some light on how a CEO of a corporation this big gets selected, from searching for and vetting candidates to the competition involved amongst nominees vying for the position? I imagine it's less about an admissions-type board reviewing applicants' credentials and accomplishments and more about years and years of strategic positioning, favors, and relationship building with people that matter. Or a bit of both.
- lutusp 13y ago> Can someone in the know shed some light on how a CEO of a corporation this big gets selected ... It's easy to summarize: the stockholders trust the corporation's board, and the board trusts its selected candidate. There are very few written requirements, most of the process is based on the judgment and experience of the board members -- which is why they're sitting on the board. > ... years and years of strategic positioning, favors, and relationship building with people that matter. That's accurate. But the bottom line is that if the candidate doesn't work out, the board's credibility evaporates -- that part of the process is also ruthless and unwritten.
- CodeCube 13y agoIt's actually much like the hunger games ... a bunch of candidates go into an arena, and the new CEO emerges from the carnage.
- acqq 13y agoSatya Nadella: His first interview as CEO of Microsoft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8JwNZBJ_wI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8JwNZBJ_wI
- agilebyte 13y agoWhere are all the people? Looks like an estate agent showing us around.
- tanzam75 13y ago> Where are all the people? Looks like an estate agent showing us around. In the first scene, we see fog outside the windows. According to the Weather Underground, it was foggy in Seattle on February 1 and 2, with rain on the 1st. There was no fog or rain on February 3 or 4. Conclusion: the video was recorded on either Saturday or Sunday. Hence the empty building.
- porker 13y agoI love the quote "Our industry does not respect tradition - it only respects innovation". The most profound words I've read all day. What would our industry be like if it respects tradition? Less reinventing the wheel every decade?
- vacri 13y agoGiven that the internet as the public knows it is only 20 years old, there's really not that much tradition. A kid in 1990 wouldn't say "I wanna be a web developer", because that job simply did not exist - it would still be several years before Mosaic came along (it's just had it's 21st birthday)
- porker 13y agoFor the internet perhaps not. For our industry - we can trace it back to the 1950s or 1960s (I know there were earlier uses of computers, but I've never sen them as similar enough to our pattern).
- wslh 13y agoInteresting that they use Modernizr and normalize.css for the web page instead of their own css/js code.
- staunch 13y agoMicrosoft should spend the next 10 years running conduit and fiber to most homes in North America and building out the highest capacity network. No one else quite wants it badly enough, not even Google, and the incumbents are no threat at all. They have the money. They'll never win at software again in a big way. Micronet is the answer.
- ConceptJunkie 13y agoYeah, I'm sure the FTC would love that. I'm not saying it's a bad idea in theory, but MS is still a monopoly in many ways... they don't need to invite further scrutiny in that regard. On the other hand, the last time they got busted in the U.S., they got off with a slap on the wrist. The E.U. seems to take that stuff a little more seriously.
- ceautery 13y agoWatching the video of Satya, I found that I was most happy about all the plants in their building. Also it's interesting to listen to Satya's native accent come and go depending on what he's talking about.
- amaks 13y agoI'm curious what's going to happen to Stephen Elop now. I was under impression he was aiming for the CEO position at Microsoft himself.
- z5h 13y ago"Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation." ... "Our job is to ensure that Microsoft thrives in a mobile and cloud-first world." Catching up to the current state of things does not sound like innovation.
- yaeger 13y agoAlso, "mobile" and "cloud first" is a sure fire way to continue with Windows decline with every new version they put out. If they really continue down that road, you can bet your behind that Win7 will put XP to shame regarding longevity. There is no need to "wait for Win9" if that is their way forward. Nothing needs to be "cloud first". Especially no Desktop OS. But MS currently still has problems acknowledging this fact. Unless the new CEO changes that, Win7 will stay put. Period. And a guy coming from Enterprise should know that. But since he also comes from "the cloud", it is about a 50:50 chance he'll actually do the right thing.
- gopi 13y agoThe first thing that hit me was this dude has the look of Steve Jobs
- racl101 13y agoLooking forward to see how he leads M$.
- runjake 13y agoI'm hoping Satya can break through Microsoft's notorious cycle of be strongly competitive, but then neglecting a product when it has achieved dominance. Also, continue and expand the embracing of open technologies. Do all that and avoid monpoly tactics and you should be good to go. Microsoft has always been its best as the underdog and that's where they're at now.
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- sirkneeland 13y agoI'm still glad it's not Elop.
- _random_ 13y agoAction plan: 1. Reverse damage done to development community: 1) resurrect XNA merge with MonoGame as an OSS initiative; 2) play down HTML5; 3) resurrect WPF for enterprise. 2. Innovate - tablets are a missed opportunity now, so are glasses. Do everything possible to buy Oculus VR, focus on prototyping software for eyelenses and brain implants for the future.
- atmosx 13y agoI see that Microsoft is a hot arguments with many holding strong opinions on both sides :-) good.
- bpyne 13y agoIt'll be interesting to see the direction Mr. Nadella takes the company in. Hopefully he expands the Research division and tears down barriers to incorporating more research gems into the product lines. I'd also like to see more UI/UX innovation. One further thing I'd like to see: Visual Studio as a platform-independent product line with F# as a major player in that platform.
- rjbwork 13y agoI'm really hoping this gives Scott Guthrie and Scott Hanselman a path up the MS corporate ladder. They're contributions to the .NET dev community cannot be understated.
- spiderPig 13y agoI heard Scott is already pretty high up in the ladder and reports to Satya today. I hope he takes over Satya's position and heads the Cloud and developer efforts though.
- rjbwork 13y agoYes, this is exactly what I was alluding to. Scott Guthrie is the reason ASP.NET has so many Microsoft made open source components, so having him in a position of greater power can only be good for MS, the dev community, and OSS in general, I think.
- ballard 13y agoSo I've done consulting with a 20MM+ USD startup that has engaged MSFT over a long period for acquisition potential. It was the case that Balmer had to personally approve every M&A activity over 10MM USD. Hopefully Satya will put in place an A-team of shrewd investors to delegate much of this activity because it seems nonscalable for a CEO to get involved in nearly every transaction. Satya has a lot of work to do to keep what works, modernize and throw out the bad (repeatedly trying to apply the same UX from one platform everywhere). PS: Azure is great technically and is lightyears ahead most other parts of MSFT but it has not found enough customers to warrant applause. AWS eats their lunch.
- curiousfiddler 13y agoIf Microsoft open sources Windows...
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- truefav 13y agoSteve Ballmer - goodbye ...sing developer..developer..developer at home now.
- truefav 13y agoHello Satya..can you outsource jobs to India ?
- nreece 13y agoCame across a recent interview of his, by Om Malik, discussing the future of technology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ8Hiss2EkE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ8Hiss2EkE
- sgt101 13y agoAmusingly there is only one comment out of 328 with the word "engineer" in it (ok two now). I think that says much about the future of microsoft.
- fleshweasel 13y agoMicrosoft needs a CEO who's willing to focus, and that means killing the stupid ideas and making hard decisions on what they're trying to be and what they aren't trying to be. Windows 7 and Xbox 360 were both relatively successful products. It seems to me that Windows 8, Xbox One and other recent products have suffered from a lack of focus. They're trying to segment such that their phones run one OS and their tablets and laptops run another. This is a really bad premise for a lot of reasons. The right processor architectures for laptops are not the same as the right processor architectures for tablets and phones. Windows 8's interface that tries to cater simultaneously to touch and mouse input is a confusing mess for users. They've decided to kill foundational elements of the UI for reasons that are simply boneheaded. It's obvious that an OS focused on touch input and mobile processor architectures and an OS focused on mouse/keyboard input and desktop architectures is a much better strategy. As far as I can tell, Ballmer was a nut whose principal qualification was being Gates's college roommate. Hopefully we'll see Microsoft become more competitive in the consumer space with this change.
- flipped_bit 13y agoGood luck to MS. Their busineess metrics currently looks good but can they win the hearts and minds of the next gen.? On the gaming side, they are well positioned. As mentioned by several commentators here, most new companies (incl. my own) entirely relies on Google Doc. offerings, Gmail etc.. to almost never using any MS products except in some scenarios. It is great to use for some advanced work - something even today when Google spreasheets is unable to work with large datasets. MS Office Suite is really an amazing piece of SW - this coming from a Linux geek and yes I have tried others like OpenOffice etc....
- nilkn 13y agoThis is a bit of a tangent, but is not having an MBA a significant impediment to advancement in Microsoft to the executive level? I've never worked there, but the impression I have is that a programmer there could never hope to rise to this sort of level in the company.
- SonicSoul 13y agoHis statements sounded rather generic. Satya on first things to focus on: * ruthlessly remove obstacles to innovation * focus innovation on things that Microsoft can uniquely do * find more meaning at work opportunities for Microsoft: * opportunities are unbounded; we want need to be able to pick a unique contribution that we want to bring.. (focus on productivity) why will Microsoft be successful? * we have the talent, the resources and perseverance like no one else has => combine it with self empowered world = best platform to change the world. hopefully soon there will be a more tangible strategy for Microsoft, but i'm not holding my breath.
- Haul4ss 13y agoWell, it was his first day on the job. I didn't expect him to roll out a 50-page strategy document. He was cheerleading here. Boosting the morale of Microsoft employees by talking about how awesome they are and how their lives will improve under his tutelage.
- pdfcollect 13y agoJust curious: Does anyone know his GPA @ Wisconsin–Madison?
- tuxguy 13y agoHe went to Wisconsin Milwakee not Madison. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella#cite_note-16 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella#cite_note-16 But he is still wicked smart, i think :)
- teyc 13y agoThis is an interesting pick. He may be diplomatic but he is quite clear about the current organisation problems, that Microsoft's need to amplify their work. Microsoft has been a traditional technology company but increasingly, they are getting trounced on the consumer side because they never had to build up a competency due to their incumbency. Microsoft is very good at long term support platforms. They have clearly articulated how long they will support each of their iteration of OS, and software packages. These work extremely well in the enterprise space. Moving a lot of their disparate services into long term support - e.g. skydrive makes good sense. If they can now do the same for their software platforms and provide long term support for how to write long lived applications that will run well on the ARM and x86 platforms, we should start seeing some consolidation in the APIs again.
- jamhan 13y agoI wish Microsoft would stop using language like "he saw how clearly Microsoft empowers people to do magical things". It makes it sound like Microsoft people are still off in la-la land, continuing to create interfaces like Metro for the desktop. Get Microsoft back to being a great software engineering, customer-focused and reliable company that enables people to be more effective in their jobs and help make those people's customers happier.
- hamburglar 13y agoI totally agree with this. Microsoft would be really smart to cure themselves of all the delusional "we've got the greatest and most innovative people" crap. Sure, sure, pat yourselves on the back for your accomplishments and be proud when you do things well, but don't act like it's because you've somehow managed to hire the Chosen Devs. That kind of thinking just leads to never being self-critical.
- tn13 13y agoI had the pleasure of meeting Sathya a year back. He was giving a presentation to a crowd where he said "anyone uses Windows Phone?" No one raised their hands. He said "damn, even I use an iPhone".
- shanselman 13y agoIt's worth noting that under Satya (in my org, Cloud and Enterprise) we open sourced ASP.NET, use 50+ OSS libraries in Visual Studio, have all the Azure cloud SDKs on GitHub, and on and on. We made Portable Libraries happen and now share code between iOS, Android, and Windows. This is not your grandfather's MSFT, and now the dude who helped us (Azure) change things in a fundamentally non-MSFT and totally awesome way is in charge. I'm stoked - big things coming, I think. Disclaimer: I work in Azure.
- dave1619 13y agoIt's great to hear from somebody who worked in Satya's division at Microsoft. Are people at Microsoft generally upbeat about Satya's CEO appointment?
- shanselman 13y agoTotally. He's super nice, wicked smart, very approachable, listens more than he talks. He has the Enterprise and Tech chops.
- outside1234 13y agoHe promptly promoted Scott Guthrie in his first official move (that I know about), so things are off to a great start in my book!
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- BlackDeath3 13y agoSeems like it may be an interesting place to work in the coming years!
- amaks 13y agoWe'll see, Gates and Ballmer are going to stay on Microsoft board. I'm wondering how much freedom Nadella is going to have in making decisions.
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- vithlani 13y agoThe only good thing about this is showing the world that the curries are finally stepping up. It will not make one iota of difference to anything Microsoft does, its culture, policies, etc.
- bokmann 13y agoCool, with Bill also more in the action we can probably hope some interesting times ahead. Another "white" topic though: does anyone notice those white spots in the MS logo?
- chenster 13y agoThe key here is innovation. Innovate or die. Simple as that regardless is OSS or proprietary. Is Satya up to the challenge to turn the sinking ship around? We will see in the next a few years.
- Corrado 13y agoDid anyone else notice the way that they are dressed? There is not a single tie anywhere in any of the pictures. Even the people in the background are dressed casually. I can't ever remember a CEO of a major corporation not being fully outfitted in formal office attire, Steve Jobs not withstanding. I take this to mean that Microsoft is aiming to be hip and cool. That's not a bad thing, if they really mean it and can pull it off. I hate the coat & tie thing when it dictates what I can do and my level of political influence. Those things should be decided by my ability to think and reason, not where I shop for clothes.
- teddyh 13y agoRegarding all the positive comments, I think the previous guy was so bad, and the new guy mostly nondescript, that people are projecting all their hopeful wishes onto the new guy. Really, a lot like what seemed to happen with Bush and Obama.
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- LeicaLatte 13y agoI want MS to buy Unity. Love unity for how well it uses C# and javascript and is definitely right up their alley.
- axilmar 13y agoDear Mr Nadella, if you want Microsoft to innovate, simply throw out everything you have done so far and bring us a real object-oriented operating system that can work seamlessly on one machine, many machines on a lan or many machines on a wan. Productivity could be vastly enhanced from what it is today by a true object-oriented design. Computers are not file cabinets. Computers contain objects. The file metaphor no longer serves us.
- DonGateley 13y agoWhat, do they all have the same coach telling them how to use their hands to talk with?
- DonGateley 13y agoAnd here I was hoping for Steven Sinofsky. :-)