Nadella Appoints New CEO To Run Microsoft's Biggest Businesses (theverge.com) 11
Microsoft is promoting Judson Althoff, currently executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Microsoft, to a new role as CEO of its commercial business. From a report: It's the latest shakeup inside the company, as Microsoft navigates what CEO Satya Nadella calls a "tectonic AI platform shift." It's also a move that will allow Nadella to focus on more technical work at Microsoft, while still remaining overall CEO.
In an internal memo to employees today, Nadella announced Althoff's promotion and said it's linked with the need for Microsoft to reinvent itself in the AI era and "bring together sales, marketing, operations, and engineering to drive growth and strengthen our position as the partner of choice for AI transformation." Althoff has led Microsoft's global sales organization for the past nine years, helping the company build out its Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS) division. He will now also be responsible for the operations and marketing teams that help sell Microsoft's software and services to businesses, but not the engineering teams that help build them.
In an internal memo to employees today, Nadella announced Althoff's promotion and said it's linked with the need for Microsoft to reinvent itself in the AI era and "bring together sales, marketing, operations, and engineering to drive growth and strengthen our position as the partner of choice for AI transformation." Althoff has led Microsoft's global sales organization for the past nine years, helping the company build out its Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS) division. He will now also be responsible for the operations and marketing teams that help sell Microsoft's software and services to businesses, but not the engineering teams that help build them.
Re: um what? (Score:2)
Nadella does not need technical chops. What he will do is decide which tech initiatives will go forward, which will not, and how the resources will be allocated among them.
The guy has a decent track record on making those types of decitions.
Late to the internet (Score:2)
Microsoft is often cited in business books as being late to the internet back in the 3.11 & 95 days.
Ever since, they have been paranoid about being left behind.
So they're all-in on AI. I hope they burn for this fad.
Re: (Score:2)
They were also late to search, they were late to mobile, they were late to streaming (YouTube), they were late to gaming, and have 'gone all in' on each of these including security. M$ is all in on whatever will shift their stock pricing in words only.
Re: Late to the internet (Score:2)
Their direct competitors also jumped head first in this fad, so, once the fad fades, comparatively speaking, microsoft will not be worse off compared to the competition.
What could REALLY hurt microsoft is that AI ends up NOT being a fad, and Micrsoft NOT being one of the top companies in the space.
Re: (Score:2)
They burn...well, From a Verge article I got that only 2% of Microsoft 365 users are willing to fork over an extra 30 USD per month for their Co-Pilot integration. Which makes me think that the burning that Microsoft is doing is money, hand over fist. So yeah, I can imagine there is a need for a new sales-guy trying to peddle Co-Pilot.
That or Microsoft making a product people actually wanting to use. You could also say that Microsoft burned that particular bridge towards good products quite a while back. An
Amazing (Score:3)
The Chief Commerical Officer is becoming the Chief Officer of the commercial division! Amazing changes.
How's Microsoft doing? (Score:2)
the difference between a CEO and a COO (Score:4, Interesting)
Is that the CEO will lean more heavily into strategy and external relations, while the COO will lean more heavily into tacticas and, well, operations.
What I read into this is either the workload has become too much for Nadella alone, or, they are preparing some sort of succesion plan.