Microsoft's search for a new leader appears to be focusing increasingly on internal candidates, including Satya Nadella, a longtime executive who has led the company's initiatives in cloud computing.

In addition to Mr Nadella, Microsoft has held conversations with Kevin Turner, its top sales executive, and Tony Bates, who joined Microsoft through its acquisition of Skype. Stephen Elop, the former chief executive of Nokia who said he would rejoin Microsoft once its purchase of Nokia's mobile business was complete, has also been considered for the job.

But although Microsoft has refused to comment, those monitoring the process believe Mr Nadella was the favoured candidate.

Mr Nadella is a popular choice partly because of his oversight of the enterprise software and cloud computing businesses at Microsoft, one of the strongest and fastest growing parts of the company. A native of Hyderabad, India, who joined Microsoft in 1992 from Sun Microsystems, Mr Nadella also has a deeper engineering background than many of the other internal candidates.

That fits in with the view of a number of advocates for change at Microsoft, who believe the company's leader needs to have stronger technical chops than outgoing head Steve Ballmer, whose background was in sales.

Mr Nadella, however, does not have a proven track record in consumer businesses, which are becoming a bigger part of the company’s focus through its Xbox game console, Surface tablets and its acquisition of Nokia’s mobile unit. John Connors, the former chief financial officer at Microsoft and a venture capitalist in the Seattle area with Ignition Partners, said he did not believe that would be an issue for Mr Nadella. Mr Connors said Mr Nadella would be an “outstanding choice” for chief executive.

“I think he’s a strong enough leader and general manager that he’ll do just fine,” Mr Connors said. “The company has a lot of talent and ability to recruit a lot of talent. He’s a guy who could run a multiportfolio business.”

It appears unlikely that Microsoft will name a new leader until next week at the earliest. An announcement is not expected today, one of the people briefed on the search said. Another person with knowledge of the process said, only half-in-jest, that many people connected with Microsoft would be distracted from the search over the weekend because of the Super Bowl matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos.

(New York Times)