Are these two guys keeping some people from taking the Microsoft CEO spot?
Marc Benioff, the highly outspoken founder and CEO of Salesforce.com, has never been shy about offering his opinions and today in a new interview, he states that Microsoft, one of his company's rivals in the cloud data business, need to go in some new directions if it wants to prosper again.
Just after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced his upcoming retirement, Benioff suggested that chairman Bill Gates return as an interim CEO. Indeed, in a new interview at VentureBeat. Benioff praises him, saying, "I think Bill Gates is amazing; he’s my role model." He added that since Gates left Microsoft full time "he’s happy, he’s joyful, he’s relaxed, he’s having a good time — and while he was at Microsoft, he was miserable and kind of a curmudgeon."
However, Benioff feels that Microsoft as a whole needs "to push the reset button on vision." He feels that the company has "unbelievable assets that every company in the world wishes they had — in brand, market position, technology, and monopoly — but they can’t execute it."
He also feels some new blood needs to be put into place in management and that might be hard with Microsoft's current board of directors, which will have both Gates and Ballmer as members. Benioff says, "I think it’s hard for the CEO coming in with two CEOs looking over their shoulder, so I think they’re going to have to address that." That's something that might have caused Ford CEO Alan Mulally to decide not to take the gig after being the front runner for the Microsoft CEO job for months.
Source: VentureBeat | Image via Microsoft
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