Co-CEOs: devices: Elop, services: Bates

[Mark Morales]

The more I think of how complex Microsoft has become, the more I believe the co-ceo model would work well. Of course with Gates/Ballmer running in the 'background'

 

[mase123987]

You always need a final word and a face of the company...

 

[AngryNil]

Acquire BlackBerry, then hand the reigns over to Balsillie and Lazaridis. Maybe keep Heins around too for some tri-CEO action!

Now I'm an outsider so my opinion is pretty unqualified, but where has Bates proven that he is worthy of CEO, let alone Executive VP? He was the CEO of a company with a proprietary communication service which is getting proper message sync in 2013 – a problem solved over a decade ago – and is relying on lock-in to continue to charge for services that Google is now offering for free. His division has failed to integrate with Microsoft – unusable WP7 client, barely passable WP8 one, but hooray for Windows 8.1's Skype on the lockscreen? It hasn't done anything meaningful since the $8.5 billion acquisition except erode mind share over to iMessage/FaceTime and Google Whatever.

 

[gsquared]

Mase is correct. If you need two people to do the job then you have the wrong two people. I did hear a name as CEO possibility that I haven't heard before. Mark Hurd. He could be the perfect fit for MSFT. He did good things while heading HP. I'm rooting for Elop of course but Hurd is certainly right there with him. I'd be satisified either way.