Microsoft Corp Chairman John Thompson said that the Redmond, Washington-based software maker faces the challenge of directing the firm's generous resources towards the right path, Bloomberg reported.
Thompson, who spearheaded Microsoft's search for CEO which ultimately seated Satya Nadella, told Bloomberg Television in an interview, "The issue for us is, quite frankly, about focus. One of the reasons we chose Satya Nadella is he has a strong technology background. He understands exactly what needs to happen to move Microsoft forward."
Thompson was appointed as Chairman of the Microsoft Board earlier this month, taking the place of company Co-Founder Bill Gates who still remained on the board but would be devoting more of his time developing the company strategy. Thompson, who has been a member of the board since 2012, said he never saw himself as a Chairman of the Board. He intends to dedicate much time mentoring the firm's newly appointed CEO who succeeded Steve Ballmer. Thompson said Nadella is "young, aggressive and open-minded," the report said.
Although Thompson lauded the software giant's thrust towards cloud services with programs like Azure and Office 365, he believes that Microsoft needs to concentrate on how it can "become even more relevant to consumers." Ballmer rolled out the devices and services approach over a year ago in an effort to partly address the issue of relevance and Thompson said what Nadella will do to "augment" this strategy will be "interesting," the report said.
Thompson added that he does not expect Nadella to talk about his strategy in his first board meeting as CEO when the board meets in March. However, Thompson said Nadella will give the board an update of his approach soon, the report said.
Thompson is the Chief Executive Officer of San Jose, California-based Virtual Instruments Inc, a company that develops software focused at tracking the performance of application and hardware, the report said.
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