14 DAY TRIAL // Joachim Kempin, the ex-Microsoft executive who worked for the Redmond-based tech giant from 1983 to 2002, is back with more negative comments aimed at his former employer.
This time, Kempin is criticizing Microsoft’s recent upper management changes, and boy he does it in style. Kempin calls Satya Nadella just “a sheep, a follower” and says that he doesn’t expect anything innovative to see daylight as long as he’s the CEO.
“This reminds me of the pope — only gestures, and no real reform to be expected,” he was quoted as saying by Dan Lyons on his own blog.
“Most interesting, he can neither spell CONSUMER nor DEVICE. He is a softie, and he is a big business serving guy. His stated goal is to bring innovation faster to market. No track record there either. The best way to do that is to sell some parts of the company and get rid of a lot of fat. He won’t do that either.”
As far as Bill Gates’ return to Microsoft in the role of technical advisor, Kempin believes that such a move is absolutely ridiculous and it’s only an indication that both the co-founder and Steve Ballmer would continue to lead the company in the coming years.
“Most important, Bill is gone. But he and Steve will still be on the board. The new chairman [John Thompson, a longtime IBMer and former Symantec CEO who joined Microsoft’s board of directors in 2012 and is replacing Gates as chairman] is not very impressive. There will be a lot of shadow boxing between the CEO and the other guys,” Kempin noted.
“Nadella won’t need tech advice. So making Bill his adviser is the biggest joke I have heard in a long time.”
Satya Nadella, on the other hand, seems very excited with the opportunity to lead the number one software company in the world and together with Bill Gates, he’s expected to indeed make some steps forwards towards a new innovation era. It remains to be seen, however, how much impact the return of Bill Gates on board will actually have on his software empire.