Microsoft Board of Directors or choose conservative CEO not big surgery

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's current CEO, Ballmer, "Sohu It News" Beijing time September 2, Ballmer (Steve Ballmer) will retire in the next 12 months to make Microsoft's Board of directors received wide attention. But the background of Microsoft's directors and past decisions suggest that they are unlikely to choose a CEO who will do major operations on Microsoft. "From the Microsoft board members and the CEOs who have chosen them, they are less likely to choose a CEO who is not keeping the status quo," Jeffrey Reyport, Senior Advisor to Castanea, a private equity firm, said Jeffrey F. Rayport. "The 9-member Microsoft Board is better at business management than new technologies such as mobile devices and social networks." Microsoft's board includes two banking executives, an auto industry executive, a venture capitalist and an executive at IBM for 28 years, all of whom are not less than 56 years of age. People familiar with Microsoft's board say they are unlikely to be bullish on visionary leaders. One source said that Microsoft directors knew that the new CEO must be able to manage a vast empire with a wider range of employees and 100,000 people than most technology companies. Microsoft's board hopes to finish the job in 4-6 months. Microsoft says Ballmer will retire in a year, or when the company selects the new CEO. Microsoft co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates will be able to sway the board, according to people familiar with the matter. Despite less than 5% per cent stake, Gates can still exert a significant influence on board decisions. Some investors and outside experts are worried about whether Microsoft's board has enough power to select a CEO who will "destroy the status quo." Critics say Microsoft directors often compromise Ballmer and gates. Some observers and former Microsoft executives say they think gates will impose his will on other directors and choose the CEO he is satisfied with. Microsoft's announcement in Friday that it would let activist investors ValueAct Capital Management (hereinafter referred to as "ValueAct") into the board early next year was a variable for Microsoft's future. Microsoft's board may choose the new CEO before ValueAct gets the vote. But some Microsoft shareholders hope that ValueAct can be a catalyst for Microsoft to choose a radical CEO. ValueAct has a 0.8% per cent stake in Microsoft. Michael J. Wolf, who served as Yahoo's director on behalf of radical investor Daniel Le Boux Daniel Loeb, said activist shareholders "can give the board the courage not to take a conservative approach when choosing a CEO". For years, investors have criticized Microsoft for its depressed share price and some of its investment projects have not returned. Ballmer tried to get Microsoft into areas outside of PC software, and in July he unveiled a restructuring measure to break a highly autonomous fragmented structure that addsStrong cooperation among various departments. Some former Microsoft executives and analysts said Ballmer's restructuring plan was "ill-conceived" and called on Microsoft to hire CEOs who dared to abandon the current strategy. But Microsoft's board has made a statement that it will continue to pursue the strategy set by Ballmer. "The right choice for Microsoft," Ballmer said in a Monday e-mail, "is to move at full speed and strengthen the business in ways that we agree are critical to the company's future success." Elinno Blocksham Eleanor Bloxham, an enterprise management consultant, said that Microsoft "does not need so many bankers, it needs people who are innovative and who are directors of mobile and the latest software trends." A source close to Microsoft's board said that part of the board was based on familiarity with the management of large enterprises, and that Microsoft's technical directors were familiar with the new technology trend. Jeffrey Songningfield, vice president of the Yale School of Management, said that Microsoft's board had a good track record, with growth in corporate profits and shareholder dividends, and that "the Board of Jeffrey, a technology-industry venture capitalist, could not perform better". Bamboo)