Stefan Mileschin

Microsoft has released the short list of candidates to replace Chief Executive Steve Ballmer .

According to Reuters, five people including Ford Motor chief Alan Mulally and former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, have been named and shamed in a leaked list.

There are three internal candidates for the job including Skype CEO Tony Bates, who is now responsible for Microsoft's business development, and Satya Nadella, the company's cloud and enterprise chief,.

Apparently, it will take a few more months to weed out the weedy from the list. We guess there have to be interviews, bake-offs, and obstacle courses. Gordon Ramsey will be called into to shout at candidates that their medium business plan is so rare that it would be impossible to have it aborted in Texas.

Reuters said that it could not find the name of the other candidates who were involved in the selection process. It seems that there were about 40 of them.

News that Alan Mulally was shortlisted was news to Ford, which said that he remained fully focused on continuing to make progress on his glorious One Ford plan.

Investors want someone like Mulally or Computer Sciences CEO Mike Lawrie, to succeed Ballmer. They also want Bill Gates to go because he stands in the way of a radical shake-up which would result in more cash going to them. We probably should not look to investors to come up with a sensible technology plan to make Vole more relevant.

Mulally, 68, is credited with inspiring a cultural change that helped Ford reverse its losses and avert a federal bailout in 2009. He has said that he will stay with the company until 2014.

http://news.techeye.net/business/mic...ceo-short-list