Microsoft gets closer to the cloud with new CEO big changes ahead

It’s official. Microsoft will finally embrace the cloud, and harness a potential held at bay far too long by its former CEO.

In Satya Nadella’s email to his employees, he formally announces his intention to steer Microsoft away from a platform-dependent eco-system, to a cloud-based range of devices that will be considerably closer to Google’s business model.

The new direction will also include the development of open source applications for business, in an effort to open Microsoft to a wider market and audience.

So far, information on Nadella’s strategy reveal that there will be job cuts, an expected consequence of a radical transition, as Nadella was quoted saying on Microsoft that the company needs to make “products that people love”.

The new, increasingly platform-independent, and ubiquitous Microsoft, is bound to cut deep into its existing workforce, which begs the question of what will Microsoft do with the Windows operating system and MSDN as it stands today.

Speculation abounds on a possible cloud-based Windows OS, and a completely different line of operating systems. Microsoft’s focus on Bing, its flagship search engine, seem to suggest there will be further integration of services and applications into Windows Live, which already includes a cloud-based version of Microsoft Office that fully integrates with Windows phones.

Satya Nadella is expected to shed more light onto the future of the operating system, after July 22nd, when the company reports its annual earning.