Microsoft
settled on a veteran insider as its replacement for long-time CEO
Steve Ballmer on Tuesday, ending a five-month search with a choice some
analysts called a “safe pick” for the software behemoth.
India-born Satya Nadella, 46, head of the company's cloud computing
division and enterprise business, was appointed after a team of
headhunters concluded a five-month search that included some of the most
world’s most famous executives.
Nadella is only the third person
to lead Microsoft; since the company was founded 39 years ago, only
co-founder Bill Gates and Ballmer have headed it. But in recent years
the company has looked flat-footed as rivals Apple, Google and Facebook
have dominated and innovated in hardware, online services and social
media.
In a nod to Nadella's low profile outside the company, Microsoft introduced him with a sleek web page that was heavy on biographical details including the revelation that he relaxes by reading poetry.
Ballmer
said he would step down last August amid mounting criticism of the
company’s dependence on its Windows, Microsoft Office and workplace
software, products that have generated massive profits for the company
for decades but are being increasingly challenged by online
alternatives. In a statement, Ballmer said Nadella was “the right leader
at the right time” for Microsoft.
Some were less sure. In a
note to investors, analysts at FBR Capital Markets said the appointment
of Nadella was a "safe pick" compared to choosing an outsider. Microsoft
was among the first to innovate in areas like smartphones, tablets and
cloud services. But it has seen those ideas better executed by rivals
including Apple and Amazon, the note said.
As part of the
announcement, Gates said he would step down as chairman to assume a new
role on the board as founder and technology adviser. John Thompson, the
Microsoft board member who oversaw its search for a new chief executive,
becomes chairman. “During this time of transformation, there is no
better person to lead Microsoft than Satya Nadella,” Gates said..
“Satya
is a proven leader with hardcore engineering skills, business vision
and the ability to bring people together. His vision for how technology
will be used and experienced around the world is exactly what Microsoft
needs as the company enters its next chapter of expanded product
innovation and growth,” Gates said in his statement.
Nadella may
be little known outside of Microsoft’s sprawling Redmond campus, but
inside it he is a star. Before being named as CEO he ran one of
Microsoft's fastest growing divisions, cloud services. Revenue at the
division soared 107% compared to a year ago, the company said when it
reported its fiscal second-quarter results on 23 January. Most of his
experience is in serving corporate customers – the source of two-thirds
of Microsoft profits.
He has also been unafraid to speak his mind on sensitive issues. In December, speaking at the Le Web
conference in Paris, Nadella addressed the revelations of the NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden, saying they demonstrated that “the
surveillance system has to be reformed”.
"Businesses and users are
going to use technology only if they can trust it," said Nadella.
"Clearly now it's the responsibility, I think, of governments – the US
government included – to restore that trust. The only mechanisms that I
think we have learned is that the respect for the liberties of people
and the rule of law is the one way to have societies thrive."
Microsoft's
decision to retain Gates worried some observers. Sydney Finkelstein, a
leadership professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, said there
were huge challenges ahead for Nadella. Finkelstein said making changes
within a company as large as Microsoft was difficult for any CEO, and
more so when the senior figures being replaced were, as in the case of
Gates, still playing a part.
“The next CEO needs to instil a
level of risk-taking and innovation,” said Finkelstein. He pointed to
examples of insiders shaking up big companies after the resignation of a
famous CEO – Bob Iger, for example, took over at Disney after Hollywood
legend Michael Eisner was forced out amid criticism that the the media
firm was losing its way to younger rivals. Iger went on to revitalise
Disney, buying Pixar and Marvel.
“But that’s much harder to do if the people who used to run it are still breathing over your shoulder,” said Finkelstein.
Finkelstein
also noted that before Nadella’s appointment, the top job at Microsoft
had been linked to a number of leading executives outside the company,
including Ford CEO Alan Mulally. “The fact that he is relatively unknown
outside Microsoft is interesting, especially in the light of the big
names that were associated with the job. It makes you wonder if he was
the first choice,” Finkelstein said.
James Staten, an analyst with
Forrester Research, was more positive. "Satya Nadella is a tough,
number-driven leader. [His appointment] will be a great thing for the
overall direction of the company," Staten said.
"Nadella is a
visionary, is making it happen, and knows what it takes to drive change
in the unique Microsoft culture. An outsider would have a hard time
accomplishing this coming in fresh. And time is of the essence."
In a statement about his hiring, Nadella called Microsoft “one of
those rare companies to have truly revolutionized the world through
technology,” and said, “I couldn’t be more honoured to have been chosen
to lead the company.
"The opportunity ahead for Microsoft is vast,
but to seize it, we must focus clearly, move faster and continue to
transform. A big part of my job is to accelerate our ability to bring
innovative products to our customers more quickly.”
Nadella joined
the company in 1992 and as well as heading cloud services, he also held
leadership roles in server software, internet search and business
applications. Born in Hyderabad, he holds a master's degree in computer
science from the University of Wisconsin, and a master's in business
administration from the University of Chicago.
Married for 22
years and with three children, he counts cricket and poetry among his
hobbies. In an email to Microsoft employees on Tuesday morning, he wrote
that he is “defined by my curiosity and thirst for learning.”
On the web page constructed for his announcement, Microsoft said:
Microsoft’s
new CEO finds relaxation by reading poetry, in all forms and by poets
who are both Indian and American. “It’s like code,” he says. “You’re
trying to take something that can be described in many, many sentences
and pages of prose, but you can convert it into a couple lines of poetry
and you still get the essence, so it’s that compression.” Indeed, he
says, the best code is poetry.
In
a video interview, Nadella said he was “honoured, humbled, excited,” by
his appointment. “We have tremendous opportunity and that’s exciting.
And I’m also grounded on our challenges. In fact that is the adventure
and the constraint that also creates, I think, the competitive zeal in
me to be able to do great work,” he said.
More than 10 per cent of global PCs are now
running Windows 8, but Microsoft's new operating system still has a long
way to go to catch up to its predecessor.
In December, Windows 8 market share hit 6.89 per cent while Windows
8.1 was at 3.6 per cent, or 10.49 per cent in total, according to data
from Net Applications. That's up slightly from November, which put Windows 8 and 8.1 at 9.3 per cent of the market.
Between November and December, Windows 8 actually dropped slightly from 6.89 per cent to 6.66 per cent, while Windows 8.1, the newer version of the OS picked up steam, from 2.64 percent to 3.6 per cent.
At this point, however, Windows 7 still reigns supreme at 47.52 per
cent of global OS market share, up slightly from 46.64 in November.
Windows XP lands at number 2 with 28.98 per cent (down from 31.22 per
cent) - four months before Microsoft plans to end support for the ageing
OS.
Vista is clinging to life at number 4 with 3.61 per cent, but Windows 8 at least outpaces that unpopular OS. Apple's latest, OS X 10.9, has about 2.79 per cent of the market, up from 2.42 per cent the month before.
When it comes to mobile gadgets, meanwhile, iOS was the top operating
system in December with 54.27 per cent, followed by Android at 35.41
per cent. Apple's share got a boost from the iPad, which made up 31.29
per cent of that traffic, followed by the iPhone at 22.36 per cent.
Android 4.1 is the most popular version of Google's mobile OS at 13.29
per cent.
Net Applications found that Microsoft's mobile OS - Windows Phone -
nabbed only 0.55 per cent of global mobile OS share in December, down
slightly from the month before.
Hoy voy a contaros mi experiencia al
instalar en un pc HP DV5 el sistema Mac X leoparD. Hace tiempo que
queria instalarlo, pero viendo las incompatibilidades que
aun existían con los procesadores y con el hardware de nuestros
ordenadores decidí esperar. Hace unos pocos meses retomé el asunto para
ver si las versiones que rulan por internet de dicho sistema eran mas o
menos estables. Para eso consulte la experiencia de otros usuarios,
algunos tutoriales y me decidí a Instalarlo. Como bien es sabido por
todos, los ordenadores de apple son potentes ya que
estos están fabricados en base al sistema operativo. Es decir el
hardware que encontramos en el mac es 100% compatible con el sistema
operativo. Pues partiendo de esta base lo primero que hice fue comparar
los componentes de mi pc con un MacBook Pro. Mi sorpresa fue grande
cuando vi que el 80% de los componentes de mi ordenador eran idénticos o
parecidos al de el Macbook. Para los que no esten muy puestos con los
componentes que tiene su ordenador que tiren del programa Everest
y saquen un informe completo de su ordenador. Este software
le dará toda la información de su ordenador e incluso de los chipset de
sus componentes.
Salvado el tema de la compatibilidad,
tenia que decidir que version intalar, ya que existen varias distros con
drivers y cosas diferentes, tales como la iatkos, ideneb, leo, etc..Existen
distros para procesadores AMD o Intel, con unos componentes y
otros. Así que tambien hay que asegurarse de que la distro que elijamos
sea la mas compatible con nuestro pc. Para eso hay una web con todas
las distro y con sus caracteristicas llamada APPLEOSX86,
donde ademas de encontrar las diferentes distribuciones, podemos
encontrar tutoriales, consejos y todo lo relativo a la instalación de
este sistema en pc. Yo personalmente me decanté por la distribución Iatkos.
Pues bien, siguiendo el tutorial
que viene de esta distribución en la pagina mencionada me puse a
instalarla y la verdad no fue nada difícil. Es como la instalación de un
sistema linux, totalmente claro y sencillo. En unos 20 minutos
aproximadamente tenia el sistema instalado en mi ordenador, conviviendo
perfectamente con Windows 7.
El primer contacto con el
sistema fue muy gratificante...arranque en unos 30 segundos (este
periodo de tiempo esta comprendido entre que pulso el boton de
encendido, hasta que puedo ejecutar una aplicación) Exploración del
sistema rapida, vistosa y estable. Navegación por internet ligera y
estable. Estaba muy contento...pero.....algo tenia que fallar... Los
Puertos USB no iban, ni aquellos componentes que el ordenador entendia
que era usb como por ejemplo la webcam integrada :(
Pues consultando en foro la
experiencia de otros usuarios, di con la solución, había que instalarle
los ultimos driver para usb. Todos los driver los puedes encontrar en
la pagina KEXTS. A mi tan solo me
bastó con instalar un paquete llamado Multibeast, en el que vienen
actualizaciones de los controladores usb y otras cosas.
Una
vez instalado el paquete ya tenia los puertos usb disponibles, la
webcam y el lector de tarjetas, es decir tenia mi sistema Mac OSX
totalmente operativo.
Pese a la complejidad que nos
podemos encontrar por la incompatibilidad de los componentes
y demás...una vez instalado y funcionando, nuestro ordenador gana en
potencia. Se vuelve estable y seguro (olvidate de los antivirus) ademas
de bonito. Cuenta con casi las mismas aplicaciones que usamos en
windows. Como puedes ver en la captura tengo instalado el paquete
office, mensajería, photoshop, chrome,etc y todo ello 100% funcional. La
diferencia viene marcada cuando arrancamos un programa que requiere de
muchos recursos del pc, en windows o se cuelga o va lento, con este
sistema van como la seda.
Desde que lo tengo instalado, no entro en windows.
Como todos no tenemos 1.400 €
aprox. para gastarnos en un Macbook, instalar este sistema en nuestro
ordenador es una alternativa altamente recomendada, como si tienes los
1.400 pavos y quieres tener un primer contacto con el sistema Mac OSX.
Voy a comentaros las características recomendadas que tiene que tener nuestro ordenador para instalar este sistema:
-Procesador Intel Core2 duo o AMD Dual core.
-4 Gb de memoria ram (con 2 Gb. tambien funciona)
-Disco duro de 350 Gb de capacidad.
-Wifi con chipset Realtek o Broadcom.
-T. grafica nVIDIA o ATI.
Teniendo estos componentes nos garantizamos la funcionalidad del sistema en nuestro pc.
Ni decir tiene, que
si tenéis dudas o necesitáis ayuda, podeis contar conmigo para
resolverlas, bien dejando un comentario o a traves de mi pagina en facebook.
