Considering the media has been largely focused on the
upcoming Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia (and will be for the next two weeks),
there are a couple of things that have mostly slipped under the radar.
Microsoft finally named a new CEO! After Steve Ballmer
announced last August that he would be stepping down, the company started a
search for their 3rd CEO. After 38 years of existence Microsoft has
had a total of 2 CEO’s – Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. So, who is the man they’ve
chosen to fill these very large shoes? His name is Satya Nadella, and he’s been
with the company for 22 years. Many experts thought that Microsoft would go
with a big name (ex: Ford CEO Alan Mulally), or focus on someone in the world
of tech but outside of the company (Ex: Former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop), but at
the end of the day they went with someone who knows the company inside and out.
Nadella has been an executive in many of Microsoft’s fastest growing segments,
including Office, and held the position of Executive VP of cloud computing
before his promotion. Microsoft is looking to shift its focus back towards its
very profitable software division and away from its failing hardware division. There
will be a lot of pressure on Nadella to help the company become innovative and
competitive once again. Along with this, Bill Gates stepped down as Chairman
and took up the new position of technology advisor. 
Lenovo has certainly made a splash lately with some big
acquisitions. They have been attempting to get a foothold into the U.S. market,
and started off by announcing that they were buying IBM’s low end server
business for $2.3 billion. On top of that, they just announced that they will
be buying Motorola’s handset division from Google for $2.91 billion. Considering
Google bought Motorola for $12.5 billion in 2012, this is, at first glance,
bewildering. Google is in fact, keeping the majority the mobile patents it
acquired, which is considered the prize asset. This is a mostly win-win
situation, where Google gets the patents it needs to fight off costly
litigation (it hopes), and Lenovo acquires a mobile company that is already
selling phones in the U.S. giving it an inside edge to get its own phones into
the market. The Beijing based company has been growing consistently, now commanding
an 11.8% total share of the global market for PCs and tablets, second only to
Apple.
Outside of the world of technology, I have to mention some
of the negative press coming out of Sochi. Apparently 7 years of preparation
and mind blowing $51 billion (China only spent $40 billion) isn’t enough for Russia to be
adequately ready to host the Games. The media is bringing us stories of hotels
still under construction, undrinkable water, the enormous number of security forces,
and the potential security threats, just to scratch the surface. With the
opening ceremonies on Friday, it should be an interesting 2 and a half weeks. Go Canada Go!
