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Microsoft Narrows Down CEO Shortlist: Elop, Mulally, Bates, Nadella In Mix
rjmarvin writes "Sources have confirmed that Microsoft has narrowed down its search for its next CEO to five external candidates and at least two internal candidates. Rumored frontrunner Stephen Elop, former Nokia CEO, and Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally are reportedly in contention, along with Microsoft's Skype head Tony Bates and their cloud and enterprise chief Satya Nadella. The other external candidates who've emerged from the approximately 40 rumored names swirling around since August have not yet been revealed."
Given what Alan Mulally had done for Ford as CEO and Boeing as a senior VP, I'm shocked he's not the front runner. He helped lead Boeing's resurgence against increased competition from Airbus, and then made Ford the strongest of the big three automakers and the only one able to weather the storm of the Great Recession. It would seem only fitting that he would be picked to lead Microsoft as it attempts to reinvent itself against growing competition.
Elop? Nokia was already in a nosedive when he started. If anything, he just guided them to a softer crash into a fluffy Microsoft pillow.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words so here. They had ten stable quarters with >6 billion in revenue and >500 million euro profit, the Windows Phone deal is announced and boom they go from a 750 million euro profit to a 200 million euro loss and their sales have been in free fall ever since. Yes they needed a revitalization in the smart phone market where Apple and Google were kicking their ass, but they had sales and profits to fix that. Until Elop issued his "burning platform" memo and announced an all-out switch to Microsoft, that is. If Microsoft hires him it's nothing but kickback for burning Nokia to the ground to promote Windows Phone.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
No, he did not consider it. He was going to use WinPhone no matter what.
If you have no other options a knife fight is a fine choice. LG seems to be doing fine as well. Dell is trying again and moto finally seems to have some traction with the X.
The N900 could have been the beginning of going their own way. It at least would have given them a chance at something.
Elop wanted WinPhone to succeed, Nokia was secondary to that.
What the hell do people see in the N900 - I had one, my wife had one and we both hated it (but for different reasons). It was flimsy, slow and buggy - what am I missing that other people got?
Mod parent up – and here is my 2 cents.
In a market that is exploding having consistent revenue and profits is not a good thing. It means you are being left behind.
If you are a company whose products are drifting away from the high-end high-margin end of the market to the low-end low-margin is a troubling sign. It could mean you company is heading towards irrelevance.
Nokia was heading the wrong direction and a big change was needed. Either Nokia was too far gone or Elop was not up to the job – probably a bit of both.
You might be wrong about how bad Nokia was pre-Elop:
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2013/10/pinpointing-the-elop-effect-3-pictures-from-nokia-financial-data-all-agree-it-was-february-2011.html
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Please don't spread that myth. This is clearly not true and the numbers are public. The smartphone devision was highly profitable exactly up when the switch to Winodws Phone was declared and Symbian was deprecated. Symbian sales instantly collapsed and Windows Phone never (up to now) got sales even remotely close to that Symbian smatphones had at this point (30 million per quater - Lumia now: 8 million). Nokia was overall a healthy company with losts of cash before Elop and it is close to bankruptcy now.