Microsoft was built around personal computers and installed software but both of those are quickly being replaced by mobile devices and the cloud. This is something that Satya Nadella clearly understands as evidenced by how much focus Microsoft has put into mobile and the cloud during Nadella’s first year as CEO.
Satya Nadella has had a good first year as Microsoft CEO, pushing hard on his bet on a ‘mobile first, cloud first’ strategy. Quarterly (Q2 2015) results for the company were reported a week ago, and while the consumer side of the business has hit headwinds, the future of the business — cloud computing — posted an annualized run rate of $5.5 billion, from Office 365, Azure, and Dynamic CRM Online products. Top line revenue for the quarter grew to $26.47 billion from $24.52 billion a year earlier. Computer and gaming hardware sales fell 11% to $4 billion, with lowered Xbox sales. Commercial licensing revenue dropped 2%, mostly because of shrinking sales of Office commercial.
