Why Tony Bates is resurfacing as a ‘likely’ Microsoft CEO

There was no rest for rumormongers over the long Thanksgiving weekend. In a brilliant display of first-class PR manipulation, Kara Swisher at AllThingsD reported — on Black Friday, no less — that “more than a dozen tech leaders in Silicon Valley, as well as several top Microsoft execs I have talked to over the last week, have a single choice to lead the company: Tony Bates.”

Barring the possibility that Swisher had turkey dinner with a dozen and a half movers and shakers (admittedly, always a possibility for Swisher), the article struck me as an absolutely masterful piece of Microsoft PR, delivered on a slow news weekend. Somebody inside Waggener Edstrom — Microsoft’s legendary PR company — must be tickled pink about the article’s tone and timing. I’d be willing to bet Swisher’s piece is the harbinger of bigger news in the next week or two (more about that shortly).

Executive VP Bates has long been a top contender for Steve Ballmer’s soon-to-be-vacated CEO spot. I singled him out in August: “I’d put my money on Bates. I’d even stick my neck out and, at the risk of sounding like a Kremlinologist, guess that the position Bates is in right now — executive VP of business development — was created specifically to see how well he could perform swimming with the big sharks.” Several times before and after that gaze into the crystal ball, Microsoft watchers have centered on Bates — and for good reason: He and Satya Nadella are the only ones with both the technical background and Microsoft experience necessary to run the company and, most importantly, they’re the highest-level folks with street cred that’ll inspire the troops.

Swisher’s article makes some observations about Bates — in many cases attributable to her unidentified dirty dozen plus — that deserve embellishment.

I’m not as impressed with the “Mulally as CEO” push as others appear to be. It’s entirely possible that Ford CEO Alan Mulally will end up as Microsoft CEO (see my who’s-who guide to Microsoft’s “Game of Thrones”), but he wouldn’t be — indeed, given his experience, couldn’t be — a hands-on manager. If Mulally is at the top, the people reporting to him will control Microsoft’s heart and soul. It’s possible the board will appoint a handful of people to report to Mulally, but if so it certainly realizes that would only delay the inevitable choice of one individual who will run the company. The board would, in essence, be shirking its responsibility — and I don’t think the shareholders would like that.

But appointing Mulally as CEO and Bates as COO would work. As would making Mulally an “interim” CEO or “adviser to the CEO” or “in loco parentis.” Choose your appelation.

Swisher notes that Bates doesn’t have a technical degree (so what? — at least he didn’t try to fake it). He hasn’t been CEO of a big public company (true, but how many CEOs of 100,000-employee companies would be crazy enough to take the job at Microsoft?). He’s too friendly with the digerati (bring it on!), and a “wee bit too interesting, too” (as if other CEOs in this class aren’t interesting!).

Further refining the negatives list, in a comment attributed to the unattributed source:

He has not put himself out there on any major initiative at Microsoft since he arrived in 2011 after the Skype acquisition, or vastly contributed to major growth (Nadella certainly has). Then again, Bates has not presided over any messes such as Surface, either.

I have to hedge on that one. I think that when the definitive history of the Ballmer turnover is written (if anyone can ever get straight answers about anything), Bates will be portrayed as a key player from a discreet distance. Although I’m certain that Ballmer told an accurate story of his departure and its motivations in his interview with ZDnet’s Mary Jo Foley in late August, I can’t help but think he didn’t let all the cats out of the bag. One of the big cats: Bates’ assignment to a created-out-of-thin-air position in July during the major Microsoft reorganization. Is it possible that Bates was a key player in the reorg, working as Ballmer’s sounding board — with an eye to becoming his successor?

Finally, Swisher caps the negatives list with this:

Perhaps most of all, he does not have a longtime personal relationship with co-founder and chairman Bill Gates, who is a key player in the selection.

I don’t see that as a major obstacle to Bates taking over for Ballmer. Far more important is his relationship with Ballmer, not his relationship with Gates. Ballmer and Gates are like peas in a pod, and they trust each other implicitly. If Ballmer says that Bates walks on water, Gates would only wonder how far.

So if Bates (with a side assist from Mulally) is the obvious choice for CEO — and if, in fact, the choice was all but finalized way back in July — why has the “selection process” taken so long?

Lots of reasons, and that’s where Waggener-Edstrom comes into play.

Until a year ago, Wagg-Ed was canonizing then-Windows-chief Steve Sinofsky as a modern-day saint — quite successfully, I might add. Then Sinofsky and Ballmer had a falling out, for reasons unknown. (I still believe Sinofsky left because Ballmer wouldn’t immediately make Sinofsky his heir apparent after Windows 8 shipped, but that’s another tale for a different book.) We heard very little on the accession to the throne until the reorg in July, and Wagg-Ed was thick in the middle of that story, with leaks and reveals exquisitely timed.

Then came Steven Elop’s self-immolation last month, with unnamed sources saying Elop — the former Microsoft exec who went to Nokia as CEO to engineer the takeover of its mobile business by Microsoft — wants to kill Xbox and Bing. (We still haven’t heard Elop on the record about that one.) Perhaps Wagg-Ed was behind that story, maybe not, but Bloomberg’s three unnamed sources certainly drove a stake into Elop’s hopes of becoming CEO — assuming he had any.

Now, over Thanksgiving week, AllThingsD’s Swisher hears hosannas about Bates from “more than a dozen tech leaders in Silicon Valley, as well as several top Microsoft execs.”

A coincidence? No way. Swisher apparently heard some very convincing stories from some very well-placed people. Of course she ran the story.

Is Swisher’s story a Wagg-Ed-planted precursor to the final CEO announcement? I think that’s likely. I’m expecting a CEO announcement — a little papal white smoke — sometime before Christmas.

If the PR folks are behind this, they deserve a raise — very well done.

This story, “Why Tony Bates is resurfacing as a ‘likely’ Microsoft CEO,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.