New Platform, Cloud Leaders

Contributing Analyst: Rob Helm

The division that develops Windows Server, Microsoft’s cloud services, and other important platform products gained new leaders in Jan. and Feb. 2011. The changes could signal a larger shift in technical direction for Microsoft’s Windows Azure and Microsoft Online cloud services, which are due for major updates in 2011.

Bing Chief to Lead Windows Server, Cloud Development

Satya Nadella has been named head of the Server and Tools division and will report to CEO Steve Ballmer. He will replace Bob Muglia, who will leave the company in 2011. The division develops Windows Server, SQL Server, developer tools, the Windows Azure cloud platform, and Microsoft-hosted business services such as Exchange Online, as well as systems management and security products. (See the illustration “Server and Tools Division“.)

Since 2008, Nadella has overseen engineering for the Bing search platform as well as Microsoft’s ad platform, e-commerce technologies, and the MSN Portal. He joined the company’s Online Services division in 2007 after holding a variety of positions in the Dynamics division since its 2001 formation as Microsoft Business Solutions. Positions he held there included head of the bCentral small business Web service, chief of research and development, and division head (for roughly a year). Notably, Nadella oversaw the Project Green technology consolidation effort, which originally aimed to produce a single enterprise resource planning (ERP) product, but subsequently scaled back to building user interface and other platform components now shared by the company’s four major ERP lines. He joined Microsoft in 1992 from Sun Microsystems.