All things considered, this would be my pick for Microsoft’s top job. Sinofsky is exactly the kind of winning, detail-oriented technologist that Microsoft needs right now. The only question is, what will it take to make him come back to the company that pushed him out?
The long shots: Reed Hastings and Vic Gundotra
Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings currently gets a 16-to-1 chance of winning Microsoft’s CEO chair, or roughly a 6% shot. Hastings would certainly be an interesting choice, and not a completely shocking one, either.
Source: Netflix.
Hastings spent a few years on Microsoft’s board of directors, so he already knows the company better than most true outsiders. Shares of his current company have tripled year-to-date and grown nine-fold in five years. Hastings knows something about serious growth, which is a commodity in short supply at Microsoft. If Hastings comes in via a quick buyout, like the rumored Nokia solution, then Microsoft would suddenly have a serious media operation on its hands. And Hastings would be able to tap into Microsoft’s vast cash reserves to send Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) on a global growth spree of epic proportions.
But he’s a long shot for a reason. Hastings may know a lot about the movie business and he does have an engineering background, but he’s not a proven success in the hardware and software sectors where Microsoft makes its daily bread.
At Netflix, he likes to make game-changing designs freely available to anyone, including competitors. The culture clash with Microsoft’s tight-fisted intellectual property policies would be legendary.
Plus, Hastings already has what he needs to cover the globe in Netflix services. It’ll just take a few years longer without a suddenly limitless budget, which may actually be good for the quality of the final product as Netflix learns from the expansion experience.
So it’s an interesting idea, but ultimately not a serious one. Reed Hastings is happier running Netflix separately, and Microsoft needs a different kind of manager.
Vic Gundotra is an even darker horse in Ladbrokes’ ratings — a 25-to-1 shocker with a 4% chance of victory. But he’d make more sense than Hastings, and arguably more than Elop, as well.
Gundotra ran Microsoft’s developer outreach operations for 15 years, but left in 2007 to take a similar job at Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) when the non-compete clauses in his Microsoft contract expired. At Big G, he marshaled the engineering details for a while but is now also responsible for social media projects such as Google+ and Android app development.
If that’s not a skill set that Microsoft could use, I’ll eat my Foolish hat. Gundotra would instantly make Microsoft a credible force in mobile computing and social media, some of the most magical keywords in this day and age. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s been in Redmond before, networking with potential allies and gaining firsthand knowledge of what’s working and what’s broken inside Microsoft. He’d bring another culture clash with more Google-like values, but it’d be tempered by that old insider’s view.
So if Vic Gundotra is such an obvious choice, why doesn’t he sit right at the top of the Ladbrokes charts? Well, maybe he’d rather focus on a well-defined set of responsibilities at Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) than reboot into a much wider and more desperate situation at Microsoft. Some people are turnaround experts and revel in that challenge. Gundotra is the opposite, having managed nothing but winning platforms.
Recall than Gundotra left Redmond a few months after the release of Vista. When he took the reins of Android’s developer programs, the platform was an underdog to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)‘s early iPhone dominance but the market was still brand new. He has never come back from the ropes or a knockdown counted to nine, which is what Microsoft’s mobile and social efforts are facing today. If I were Vic Gundotra, I’d be pretty happy in Mountain View. I don’t see him jumping back to Redmond.
So there you have the top three choices going by the bookmaker’s odds, and two dark horses that might be interesting but are dark for a reason. Got any other candidates in mind? Ladbrokes gives Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook a greater chance of becoming Microsoft CEO than of Clint Eastwood becoming the next POTUS, for example. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments box below. But hurry up — Ladbrokes closes the betting window in October.
The article 3 Front-Runners and 2 Dark Horses: 5 Leading Candidates to Take Over Microsoft After Ballmer originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Anders Bylund.
Fool contributor Anders Bylund owns shares of Netflix and Google, but he holds no other position in any company mentioned. Check out Anders’ bio and holdings or follow him on Twitter and Google+.The Motley Fool recommends Apple, Google, and Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix.
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