微软新任董事长大起底

    2009年，约翰•汤普森从赛门铁克公司（Symantec）首席执行官一职上退下来之后，他以为自己会像多数硅谷领军人物一样，投资创业公司并在几家公司的董事会任职。简言之，他希望在辛苦工作多年后能平静度日。

    然而对汤普森来说，退休后的日子丝毫不清闲。刚刚从赛门铁克退下来一年，他就重返江湖，出任商业技术创业公司Virtual Instruments的首席执行官。上周初他又担当了一个全新的重任，同意出任微软公司（Microsoft）的董事长。这将是一个面临无数挑战的职位，因为这家公司正努力在新任首席执行官萨提亚•纳德拉的率领下重振各项业务。

    在纳德拉的领导下，汤普森必须快速行动，作出一些必然令人痛苦的决策。由于微软多年来不断犯错，投资者们已变得非常不满。这些错误包括早期没有认识到智能手机的重要性——以至于这个市场现在已经被苹果公司（Apple）和其他公司统治——以及搜索所蕴藏的巨大金矿，现在这个市场也早由谷歌公司（Google）独领风骚。

    詹姆斯•索卡斯曾经是赛门铁克的投资银行家，后来成了汤普森领导下的企业发展部的主管。他说：“约翰拥有极高的战略洞察力。他也是我曾共事过的同事中最具沟通能力的人之一，因为他很善于领会复杂的技术信息，把它们变得通俗易懂。”

    现年64岁的汤普森拥有十分丰富的高层管理经验。他在赛门铁克这家电脑安全公司整整担任了10年的首席执行官。此前他在IBM公司（IBM）效力了28年——先后任职销售、营销和软件开发部门——最后成为北美业务部的总经理。

    任职赛门铁克期间，汤普森必须处理大量和微软所面临的困境类似的难题。毕竟这两家公司的基业都是消费者和企业软件。当它们的市场开始发生变化时，这两家公司也都发现自己早期的成功开始受到侵蚀。在为纳德拉出谋划策时，汤普森将能充分吸取这些成败的教训。而纳德拉是首位此前曾在微软的在线、企业和云业务部门都担任过高管的首席执行官。

    当年在加盟赛门铁克不久后，汤普森就开始大刀阔斧地着手改革，推动公司的业务实现聚焦。到如今，赛门铁克业已成为电脑安全领域响当当的品牌。但它有一段时间业务也曾庞杂多样，既做软件开发工具，又做存储客户联系信息的数据库。他一边卖掉、关停了一些配套产品，一边通过一系列收购及建立一支庞大的销售团队来做大公司的安全业务。

    现在已是投资公司Updata Partners投资人的索卡斯回忆道：“当时他做了不少艰难的决策。现在看来这些决策显然是正确的，但在当时看来，桌面安全前景远不像现在所表现出来的情况那么好。”

    汤普森任职期间，赛门铁克的业务蒸蒸日上，年收入从他上任时的6亿美元一路增长到他卸任时的60亿美元。不过汤普森管理这家公司的过程也绝非一帆风顺。实际上，正是一些困难在很大程度上加速了他的离职。

    When John Thompson resigned as Symantec's chief executive in 2009, he figured he'd do like many other retired Silicon Valley leaders: Invest in start-ups and sit on a few corporate boards. In short, he wanted a bit of tranquility after years of hard work.

    Retirement has been anything but tranquil for Thompson, however. Just a year after resigning from Symantec (SYMC), he returned to the grind by becoming chief executive of Virtual Instruments, a business technology start-up. Then earlier this week, he took on a huge new responsibility. Thompson agreed to become Microsoft's chairman, a role that comes with countless challenges as the company tries to reinvigorate its business under new chief executive, Satya Nadella.

    Thompson, with Nadella in the lead, must move quickly and make some inevitably painful decisions. Investors are restive after years of stumbles including the company's failure early on to recognize the importance of smartphones – a market now dominated by Apple, among others – and the financial rewards of search, which Google rules.

    "John has a tremendous level of strategic insight," said James Socas, a former head of corporate development at Symantec under Thompson and, before that, the company's investment banker. "He's also one of the best communicators that I've worked with for his ability to take complicated messages about technology and make them understandable."

    Thompson, 64, can call on decades of executive experience. He served for 10 years as chief executive of Symantec, the computer security company. Prior to that, he spent 28 years at IBM -- in sales, marketing and software development -- before finally serving as general manager of the Americas business unit.

    During his tenure at Symantec, Thompson had to tackle a number of issues that parallel Microsoft's predicament. Both company's roots are in consumer and business software, after all. Both also saw their early success erode when their markets started to change. Thompson will be able to draw on those lessons -- the successes and the failures -- when advising Nadella, a first-time chief executive who previously held top positions in Microsoft's online, business and cloud divisions.

    Shortly after joining Symantec, Thompson started a major overhaul to narrow the company's focus. Today, Symantec is known for computer security. But at the time, it had a sprawling business that included software development tools and databases for keeping customer contact information. He sold off or shut down some of the ancillary products while bulking up the company's security business through a series of acquisitions and by building a huge sales team.

    "He made some tough decisions," said Socas, who is now a venture capitalist with Updata Partners. "It seems obvious now, but at the time, the forecasts for desktop security weren't as good as they turned out to be."

    During Thompson's tenure, Symantec's business ballooned. Annual revenue increased from $600 million when he started to $6 billion when he resigned. But Thompson's reign was hardly trouble free. In fact, by most accounts, some of the difficulties hastened his exit.