Microsoft might sell Xbox and drop Bing if Elop gets CEO job
Stephen Elop, a candidate to replace Steve Ballmer as Microsoft Corp.’s chief executive officer, would consider breaking with decades of tradition by focusing the company’s strategy around making the popular Office software programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint available on a broad variety of smartphones and tablets, including those made by Apple Inc. and Google Inc., said three people with knowledge of his thinking.
Elop would probably move away from Microsoft’s strategy of using these programs to drive demand for its flagship Windows operating system on personal computers and mobile devices, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the 49-year-old executive hasn’t finalized or publicly discussed his analysis of the business. Most of Microsoft’s software has been tied to running on Windows.
Microsoft became the world’s largest software provider under Ballmer and co-founder Bill Gates by making Windows-based PCs running Office applications an industry standard. When the Redmond, Washington-based company failed to come up with hit Windows-based phones and tablets, that left it with little role in the mobile market. Its refusal to adapt Office for Apple and devices based on Google’s Android operating system hasn’t helped its software usage.
