Indeed, Nadella is an opensource guy that had the chance to grow during Ballmer. While Microsoft (during Ballmer) had a slow change (going more opensource) from the bottom-to-top, there has been a faster change now from top-to-bottom. I remember Scott Hanselman, Scott Guthrie and Phil Haack (now at Github) during Ballmer as opensource contributors.
Ballmer allowed opensource during his leadership, but employees would be more "targetted" when it's not the right direction and it hasn't has "intermediate"/"fast" results... It's a much slower progress.
I believe Nadella has a lot of thanks for the change that Microsoft made before he stepped up and "received" the fame. There was a short release afterwards of his stepup with a Office version for iOS and Android, you just don't do that within the month.
Some things he did within the first 12 months:
- Bought Nokia ( they already worked very together closely, this was probably been going on for years )
- Office for iOS and Android ( was created during Ballmer, but probably got approval during Nadella)
- Opensource .Net ( opensource started with Asp.Net MVC 2, which wasn't an all-in though, i think of it as a "test" internally)
- Cloudobile - connecting mobile with the cloud ;) ( this is definatly more Nadella's style, coming from Azure)
But it isn't all "that good", a lot of people have been layed off ( approx. 18.000 ). While Ballmer's approach is very "profitable" and "evil", i do believe that Nadella's approach is more in the line of "more penetration", "cheaper prices" ( free version of Office eg.), being more open... It does come at a cost ( i hope no one blames me for mentioning this ). I do suppose those 18.000 people where mostly freelancers, but i'm not sure.
Ballmer allowed opensource during his leadership, but employees would be more "targetted" when it's not the right direction and it hasn't has "intermediate"/"fast" results... It's a much slower progress.
I believe Nadella has a lot of thanks for the change that Microsoft made before he stepped up and "received" the fame. There was a short release afterwards of his stepup with a Office version for iOS and Android, you just don't do that within the month.
Some things he did within the first 12 months:
- Bought Nokia ( they already worked very together closely, this was probably been going on for years )
- Office for iOS and Android ( was created during Ballmer, but probably got approval during Nadella)
- Opensource .Net ( opensource started with Asp.Net MVC 2, which wasn't an all-in though, i think of it as a "test" internally)
- Cloudobile - connecting mobile with the cloud ;) ( this is definatly more Nadella's style, coming from Azure)
But it isn't all "that good", a lot of people have been layed off ( approx. 18.000 ). While Ballmer's approach is very "profitable" and "evil", i do believe that Nadella's approach is more in the line of "more penetration", "cheaper prices" ( free version of Office eg.), being more open... It does come at a cost ( i hope no one blames me for mentioning this ). I do suppose those 18.000 people where mostly freelancers, but i'm not sure.