Pichai in race for Microsoft CEO

• Posted by T Ghosh February 4, 2014 - Filed in Business - #  #Indian  #advance technology  #IIT  - 1,201 views

  Two Indian-origin tech whizzes are said to be in contention to lead Microsoft .

  Yeah its an International challenge . 
  
   Microsoftboard has almost settled on insider Satya Nadella as CEO to replace Steve Ballmer, a tech blog caused a flutter on Friday by reporting that the hiring team is also talking to Sundar Pichai, who heads Google's Chrome and apps division, and who, like Nadella, is also a product of the Indian eco-system.
  

  "SiliconANGLE has confirmed that Sundar Pichai is the top choice for the CEO position of Microsoft according to sources close to the hiring team. According to sources, negotiations are in full swing with Pichai," the tech blog reported on Friday, adding that Pichai "is the leading external candidate and is in discussions with the hiring committee."
  
  SiliconANGLE's editor, John Furrier, tweeted that talks with Pichai "are so tight under wraps" that it could explain why Pichai's name had so far not surfaced for the CEO's job. Furrier again tweeted that a second source had just confirmed that Pichai "is the dark horse coming out frontrunner". But reputed tech writer Kara Swisher, who was the first to put out Nadella's name on Friday, tweeted that her sources were clear Pichai was not in the running.
  
  Despite the emergence of a dark horse, most Silicon Valley tech writers and pundits believe Nadella is still the frontrunner. The race cannot get bigger than this for India's technology talent: a storied global tech giant looking at two Indian-origin executives to lead the company at a time when it is losing mindshare to rivals Apple and Google and needs urgently to reinvent itself.
  
  Pichai is an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur, with an MS from Stanford University and an MBA from Wharton, Pichai has headed various key Google divisions, from Google Chrome and Chrome OS, to overseeing development of Google Drive and apps for Gmail and Google Maps. Google added Android to his portfolio last year.
  
  Under Pichai, Chrome has had an extraordinary run. In May 2012, Chrome became the most-used browser in the world, surpassing Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which had been the leading browser ever since it ousted Netscape from that position in the late 1990s.