As Steve Ballmer bows out of Microsoft Corp, the guessing game over who
will replace him has started with a British bookmaker putting Nokia's
Stephen Elop as the favourite.
Ballmer, 57, unexpectedly announced his
retirement last Friday after more than three decades at the world's
largest software company, including 13 years as chief executive.
With
no heir apparent, Ladbrokes opened up betting on successors for Ballmer
who will depart within the next year, with Elop, 49, topping a list of
26 candidates with odds of 5/1.
British and Irish bookmakers offer
a wide range of bets as a niche sideline to more lucrative wagers on
sports. Online gambling is far more restrictive in the United States.
Elop,
a Canadian, led Microsoft's business division before becoming chief
executive of the Finnish firm Nokia in 2010 with a brief to revive the
once-undisputed leader in mobile phones.
Senior Nokia employees
say he has forced them to make faster decisions. But Nokia's ability to
compete in the global smartphone market is increasingly questioned; its
market share stands at around three percent, far behind Samsung and
Apple which control around 50 percent between them.
Internal
Microsoft candidate Kevin Turner, chief operating officer, is second
favourite with odds of 6/1 to replace Ballmer, according to Ladbrokes.
In third is former Microsoft executive Steve Sinofsky, who left the
company last November.
The top female candidate in the stakes is internal head of devices and studios, Julie Larson-Green, in fourth place.
Microsoft
co-founder Bill Gates is ranked as a 50/1 shot to return to fill the
void but he is considered more likely than rank 100/1 outsider Tim Cook,
CEO at Apple.
Ladbrokes' spokesman Alex Donohue said the market
was a "who's who of high fliers" in the technology world. "With a year
to go we anticipate that this market will smash all previous records for
technology betting," Donohue said in a statement.
© Thomson Reuters 2013
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