14 DAY TRIAL // There are many people who could replace Steve Ballmer at the helm of Microsoft, but whoever takes the CEO seat at the Redmond-based company must be a software genius.
That’s what Tim Bajarin, president of tech research firm Creative Strategies, said in an interview with MarketWatch. And the statement pretty much makes sense.
Steve Ballmer has tried very hard to push Microsoft in some yet unexplored fields that the company failed to focus more on its roots.
The software domain has been neglected a little bit and Windows 8 has failed to excite and help the recovery of the PC industry, which translates into a rather low market share for the operating system.
That’s why the next Microsoft CEO must be a really good software developer in order to help the company rediscover its most precious product.
“[He] has to be a software genius as well as a solid manager,” Bajarin explained. “[He needs to] take them back to their roots and manage this dramatic shift to mobile in new ways that puts them on track to grow their role in the only segment of the market that is growing exponentially.”
No one is considered favorite to take over from Ballmer right now, but Microsoft confirmed that it was looking into both internal and external candidates, with a few Softies credited with the biggest chances to become CEO.
On the other hand, some analysts believe that Microsoft would better look into Google’s yard, as some of the software experts working for the search company could actually be the smartest choice.
Vic Gundotra, for example, has already worked for Microsoft and would re-join the software giant with a fresh set of ideas that could revamp its business.
“A good CEO would be Vic Gundotra at Google. He left Microsoft for Google. He has the most respect of the engineers and developers both at Microsoft and Google. Vic is probably the only executive, who can bring the much-needed fresh perspective to Microsoft, while still having a deep understanding of Microsoft Culture,” Trip Chowdhry, an analyst for Global Equities Research, said recently.