Satya Nadella took the control of Microsoft as CEO one year ago. When he took over he had big shoes to fill. Steve Ballmer was not Steve Jobs. But he was hardly a bad CEO. In fact he was extremely good when it came to keeping the company in good financial health. But it is also true that Microsoft needed some fresh prospective. Keeping this context in mind, Nadella not only had to match Ballmer in keeping the company on track so that it could keep minting money but also had to change it enough so that it could meet challenges from companies like Apple and Microsoft.
One year is too early to declare Nadella’s stint as CEO a rousing success. But it is easy to see that whatever he has done so far — and he has done a lot — is significant and has changed Microsoft for the good. Here are 6 ways in which he has changed Microsoft in the last one year.
1- Consumers first, Microsoft second
For years, Microsoft believed it ruled the world. In fact, it actually did. From the early 1990s to around 2005, it did rule the world. But then the world of technology changed. And yet, for almost one decade Microsoft refused to read the writing on the wall. It refused to acknowledge that devices like the iPhone and Nexus were popular with people.
No more. Under Satya Nadella Microsoft has realised it is no longer the top dog. People use Apple’s iOS devices and love them. People use Android devices and like them. So now the company is looking past the old Microsoft, or, in other words, Windows.
As Nadella is fond of saying, it now wants to serve consumers irrespective of what device they use. It wants people to use its mail service not only on a Windows computer but also on an iPhone. This is a huge change from the days of Steve Ballmer, who tried to use popular products like Microsoft Office to save Windows by keeping them exclusive.
