Low-key and humble, Satya Nadella is every bit different from Steve Ballmer

On his first day leading the world's largest software maker, Nadella exuded an understated calm during a less than 20-minute webcast for customers and employees. Rather than the customary press conference, the 46-year-old used the event to introduce himself and take questions from Microsoft Vice President Susan Hauser. The first line in his memo to employees started with "today is a very humbling day for me."

That contrasts with Ballmer, who for 14 years as Microsoft CEO was famous for his oversized personality. Ballmer, 57, once jumped out of a cake at Microsoft's 25th anniversary party at Seattle's Safeco Field and ran through the crowd giving highfives as if he'd won the Super Bowl. In a memo to employees Tuesday, Ballmer said he was "pumped."

If jarring, the change in style will be one of the advantages of choosing Nadella as Microsoft's third CEO, said David Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School. Ballmer's aggressive salesmanship during the boom days of the personal-computer industry exemplified how Microsoft became the world's most valuable company. Now the software maker needs a new approach as it plays catch-up in areas including tablets, smartphones and cloud services.

"Nadella's obviously a deep technologist, and he's going to bring that back to a Microsoft that hasn't had it in the CEO office for years," Yoffie said.

Product-Focused CEO

Nadella's low-key manner is also a sign of a changing of the guard in technology, as larger-than-life founders and near-founders such as Ballmer leave the scene.

Microsoft isn't the only technology company that has hired a product-focused CEO in recent years. Yahoo recruited engineer Marissa Mayer from Google in 2012 to be CEO, while networking-equipment maker Juniper Networks recently appointed Shaygan Kheradpir, who had built networks for Verizon Communications and others, as CEO ..

"This industry goes through cycles, and we're in a cycle where customers are looking for new products," Kheradpir said. "It's not a sales or a marketing thing right now." Read more..

Source: Hindi News

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