Rumors have been flying about Microsoft’s hunt for a new CEO following Steve Ballmer’s announcement of his coming retirement. Earlier this week, it was rumored that Microsoft had narrowed the field down to four candidates: Ford’s Alan Mulally, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, former Skype CTO Tony Bates, and Nokia’s Stephen Elop.
If we believe the rumors, Stephen Elop has already been contemplating his strategies should he be appointed CEO. These strategies include many changes to the way Microsoft is run.
Elop, well-known for cutting 40,000 jobs in Nokia, is always looking for ways to increase profitability. Said job cut ended up reducing Nokia’s operating costs by a whopping 50 percent. Rumors say that, if he is appointed the new CEO of Microsoft, he may be considering selling off the Xbox business should he determine it to be non-critical to the company. He also may decide to shut down or sell Bing, the Microsoft search engine.
If Elop does become the new Microsoft CEO, there is a good chance that he will be making some major alterations to the company. Selling off the Xbox business would mean dramatic changes for gamers. Only time will tell.
