Is Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella attending the company's CEO Summit?

Microsoft is holding its 18th annual CEO summit this week at its Redmond, Washington headquarters. However, the company is keeping the event even more private than it has in the past, and what happens during the summit is already very secret indeed.

In 2013, Microsoft at least offered a brief summary of what its CEO Steve Ballmer told the 120 attendees of the conference during its keynote address. This year, Microsoft's PR team doesn't even go that far in its brief FAQ about the CEO summit. In fact, current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella isn't even mentioned in the FAQ page. which makes one wonder if he's even bothering to attend.

The official press document does say that other major business leaders are attending the summit, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and others. Microsoft says the combined annual sales of the companies that are attending is $3.4 trillion.
The event is not open to the public or press and Microsoft isn't even offering any images or video of the summit. So what's goes on during the three day conference? Microsoft says the collected business leaders engage in organized panels and breakout sessions on a variety of subjects. That's pretty much all the company is saying, as the mystery surrounding this high powered gathering of business leaders continues.

Source: Microsoft  | Image via google

Microsoft: Office for iPad was a Ballmer decision

A look inside Microsoft's iPad test laboratory.

When Microsoft announced Office for the iPad, it was a huge release for the company on many fronts. For one, it was company CEO Satya Nadella’s first major announcement as the new head of the company and, second, the world’s most used productivity suite was now on the iPad.

We all know that Nadella was the one who announced the apps for the iPad, but the project got started under Ballmer. The Office for iPad team took to Twitter today to host an AMA and stated the following:

The decision to ship Office for iPad was made before Satya became CEO. Steve Ballmer approved the plan to ship Office for iPad. -- Kaberi, Technical Product Manager, Office for iPad

There are a lot of other good bits in the AMA, such as an acknowledgement that an updated version of Office of Mac is in the works and that they will be bringing Office to other platforms, such as Android. All of this shouldn't be a surprise. Office took a long time to create, as it’s not a trivial process to create robust productivity applications for a new platform, which means that the work was done under Ballmer’s direction.

What we don’t know is how long the apps have been completed and if Ballmer would have held back the apps until the Windows version was ready for release. While we will likely never know this answer, know that Office for the iPad was a Ballmer decision and a Nadella introduction.


Source: Reddit AMA | Image via Microsoft

Microsoft announces new CEO: Satya Nadella; Bill Gates becomes Technology Advisor

Microsoft has just announced an end to its official search for a brand new CEO. Frontrunner, Satya Nadella has been chosen for the position and will start his new job immediately.
Nadella is a Microsoft veteran having been with the company for over 20 years. He joined the company back in 1992 after a short run at Sun Microsystems. At Microsoft he has acted as a senior VP for R&D in the company's Online Services Division as well as a VP of the Business Division. Later on he became the president of Microsoft's Server and Tool business, where he transformed Microsoft into a first class player in the Cloud service market. The Cloud Services Division inside the company saw its revenue soar from $16 billion, in 2011 when he took over to $20.3 billion last year.  

Bill Gates, the company's founder commented:

During this time of transformation, there is no better person to lead Microsoft than Satya Nadella, Satya is a proven leader with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together. His vision for how technology will be used and experienced around the world is exactly what Microsoft needs as the company enters its next chapter of expanded product innovation and growth.

 Nadella himself had this to say:

Microsoft is one of those rare companies to have truly revolutionized the world through technology, and I couldn’t be more honored to have been chosen to lead the company. The opportunity ahead for Microsoft is vast, but to seize it, we must focus clearly, move faster and continue to transform. A big part of my job is to accelerate our ability to bring innovative products to our customers more quickly.” 

Many believe his technical know-how and long-term role inside the company have made him a very good candidate for this position. He is also seen as a safe bet, with no radical restructuring or massive change of direction being planned in the near future. Rather, he will oversee Microsoft's transition to a devices and services company, as well as the close integration of their product portfolio, the "One Microsoft" plan set in motion by ex-CEO Steve Ballmer.

However, there's a big question looming over his appointment as to whether he'll actually be able to lead Microsoft through their current transition and be enough of a visionary to take the company into the new mobile devices age. Critics point to Nadella's inexperience at managing consumer-facing products as well as lack of experience in dealing with investors.

In this regard Bill Gates, the company's founder, has stepped down from Microsoft's board and be much more involved with Nadella and the day to day operations at the company. Gates is now an official Technology Advisor for the company, while his formed role of Chairman has been taken over by John Thompson.

So far Microsoft has been severely lagging in certain markets, such as the mobile devices and services, and it will be up to Nadella to turn this around.  

There will also be a webcast from the company on this announcement at 12:00 PT for more info.

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Microsoft to pay Satya Nadella $14.4-18 million annually for CEO gig

Microsoft is going to spend a lot more money annually to keep its newly minted CEO Satya Nadella than it did with its previous leader Steve Ballmer. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, the company revealed that Nadella could earn as much as $18 million per year in his new gig.

The filing shows that Nadella's base salary will be increased to $1.2 million a year. That's already much higher than Ballmer's take home pay of $697,500 a year . Ballmer was also eligible to get a cash bonus every year, based on the company's performance. In 2013, he received $550,000 in bonus pay, which amounted to just 79 percent of what he could have earned.

Ballmer, unlike other major company CEOs, did not receive an annual share award bonus (he already owns nearly four percent of Microsoft's stock). By contrast, Nadella is going to get a very nice share awards package. Microsoft's filing says, "For the Company’s 2015 fiscal year, on an annualized basis Mr. Nadella’s EIP stock award will be $13,200,000."

Nadella will get an annual cash bonus, again based on performance, which will be between 0 and 300 percent of his base salary. Assuming he gets the full bonus, he will be able to collect another $3.6 million a year. Finally, Microsoft will offer him even more stock options over the next several years if the company hits certain share prices based on its performance on the S&P 500. You have to be a smart accountant to fully understand the formula Microsoft is using for this bonus, but basically, Nadella could earn tens of millions of dollars more over the next several years if the company reaches or exceeds its target share price.

Source: SEC via GeekWire | Image via Microsoft