Microsoft’s announcement that it would choose a new Chief Executive Offer seems like it only came a few weeks ago, but alas yesterday was Steven Ballmer’s last full day as CEO of Microsoft. Today, the company announced that it’d promoted Satya Nadella to the position effective immediately.
To be clear, Nadella isn’t a recent recruit to Microsoft. Having spent twenty-two years at the company, he likely knows the its strengths and weakness as well as any outsider or insider could hope to. Previously, Nadella worked for the Microsoft’s Business Division and Online Services division. Until today he’d served as president of the Server and Tools division at Microsoft. It’s that part of the company that’s responsible for products like Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Windows Azure and cloud storage solution SkyDrive.
Within his transition into the CEO chair, Nadella becomes only the third chief executive officer Microsoft has ever had. Only former CEO Ballmer and Microsoft founder Bill Gates have held the post. Equally, historic is Bill Gates’ new role at Microsoft. After severing as chairman since his retirement from CEO, gates plans to return to Microsoft as tech advisor. Microsoft hasn’t shared any information about the products Gates will work on, however it did confirm that he’ll now spend a third of his time at Microsoft.
John Thompson will take over for Gates as Chairman of the Board of Directors.