The upper management changes won’t make any difference, he believes

Feb 6, 2014 01:01 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has finally completed the search for a new CEO and named cloud boss Satya Nadella at the helm of the company, which means that Redmond can now go all-in on its transformation plan started by Steve Ballmer in mid-2013.

And still, as far as analysts are concerned, not much is going to change now that a new leadership team is in place, especially because the company needs to stick to the One Microsoft plan that’s supposed to help the firm migrate towards devices and services.

“From a bigger-picture perspective, I don't think much is going to change,” said Sid Parakh, an analyst at fund firm McAdams Wright Ragen, according to a report by Reuters. “The strategy that was put in place in 2013 is where the company is headed.”

On the other hand, others believe that the new trio that’s supposed to take care of Microsoft and involving Satya Nadella, Bill Gates, and chairman John Thompson, needs to work perfectly in order to help the tech giant work perfectly as a single company.

“You've got a triumvirate running the company: Satya as the new CEO, Bill as the product adviser and John Thompson running the board. A lot depends on how the three of them get along,” Bill George, Harvard Business School professor and former Medtronic Inc CEO, was quoted as saying.

“The big question I have is, is Satya really going to be allowed to make the transformative changes that Microsoft needs to make, both at the product level and at the people level?”

Bill Gates’ return in a more active role is clearly a good sign for all those who hoped to see the company trying to fix a number of products, but it’s not clear how much it is going to change now that Microsoft’s co-founder is back on board.

Gates says that he would substantially increase the time he spends at the company and although his official role is “technical advisor,” there’s no doubt that Microsoft has an excellent opportunity to head towards a different direction in the coming years.