CRM Watchlist 2015 Elites, Part 2: Microsoft gets ecosystems
Since the last third of Steve Ballmer’s reign and continuing with Satya Nadella, Microsoft has made a commitment to thinking in ecosystems — and just in time. What can they do to improve?
Microsofts Connected Tissue
Mike Ehrenberg, CTO for Microsoft Business Solutions was describing his new CEO Satya Nadella’s management style – the senior leadership team meets twice a week. “It plays havoc with planning international trips, but allows us to iterate rapidly as a company” Kirill Tatarinov, EVP of the Business Solutions group says they have moved from Steve […]
Zuora Swings for the Fences
Tien Tzuo, CEO of Zuora, gave the speech of his life a few days ago, one that Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft should study for its content if not its style. Tzuo’s company Zuora, started the subscription billing market back when billing was a big and the only deal that SaaS and other subscription companies […]
Satya Nadella: Rewriting the book on co-opetition
I asked Satya Nadella at last Fall’s analyst summit why Microsoft had been slow to leverage the multi-billion $ investment in Azure infrastructure (I had first written about the innovative data centers in The New Polymath in 2009). He seemed a bit taken aback by the question and said Office365 was one of the most […]
Is your company about to be BlackBuried?
I had an interesting conversation with a fellow executive at Blackberry 4 years ago who wanted my opinion on their product strategy. What I said to him was so obvious that I almost hesitated – build an Android phone. Now, this was common wisdom in silicon valley that if you ran BB you would have […]
1+ Microsoft
One of the most exciting takeaways from the Microsoft Fall Analyst session was a focus on One Microsoft as I wrote here. Coming to their Convergence event in Atlanta this week especially with the backdrop of executive transitions happening in Redmond, I expected a bit of a regress to tactical messages. I expected more localized, VAR […]
Satya Nadella: Microsoft, Coffee and the Relevance Question
Satya Nadella is a highly accomplished, extremely smart Microsoft executive who is correctly receiving a warm reception from media and pundits. The question that remains open however is – is he the change agent that can help Microsoft avoid the fate that other Wintel players are facing? He clearly seems to have taken to Marc […]
Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft
Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft Note: In a bit of operator error an earlier version of this post clipped off the first para. Here it is restored. Microsoft announced its selection of Satya Nadella to be the third Microsoft CEO today and I wish him well. In a flurry of announcements, Bill Gates also stepped down […]
The Problem With Replacing CEO’s, Boards, and Governance at Big Co’s
At some point, Silicon Valley VC’s, whom I am not always entirely complimentary of, decided it was easier to teach a Founder to be a decent CEO than it was to teach a Big Co Exec to fill in what they’d lose if a Founder left. That doesn’t mean they don’t replace CEO/Founders, but it […]
