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last updated 8 January 2015

Technology: Microsoft names new CEO

The search for Microsoft’s new head honcho is over, said Nick Wingfield in The New York Times. The Seattle-based computing giant named Satya Nadella as its new chief executive this week, “betting on a longtime engineering executive to help the company keep better pace with changes in technology.” The company’s directors hope Nadella will be better suited than his predecessor Steve Ballmer, whose background was in sales, to reversing some of the firm’s recent misfortunes. While Microsoft “correctly anticipated many of the biggest changes in technology,” including the rise of smartphones and tablet computers, “it has often fumbled the execution of products developed to capitalize on those changes.”

Bill Gates has a new job, too, said Shira Ovide, Joann S. Lublin, and Monica Langley in The Wall Street Journal. The firm’s co-founder is returning “to a more central role at a company struggling to catch up in mobile and other fast-moving technologies.” Gates will give up the chairman’s role and become a “technical adviser” to Nadella, devoting “up to a third of his time, which is now largely devoted to philanthropic activities,” to helping the new CEO develop Microsoft’s strategy. While not involved with any day-to-day management, Gates and Ballmer will stay on Microsoft’s board, “leaving the company’s two former CEOs with a hand in Microsoft’s direction.”

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CVS is kicking the habit, said Phil Wahba and Julie Steenhuysen in Reuters.com. The drugstore chain said this week that it would quit selling tobacco products at its 7,600 stores by October, “becoming the first national drugstore chain in the United States to take cigarettes off the shelf.” The move is expected to cost CVS—the country’s second-largest drugstore chain—roughly $2 billion in annual sales, but analysts say that loss will hardly figure in its projected revenue, and may even “strengthen its position as a health-care provider” through its Caremark subsidiary.

Say goodbye to your RadioShack, said Emily Glazer in The Wall Street Journal. Sources say the electronics retailer is planning to close around 500 of its 4,300 stores within the next few months. “The news was a cold dose of reality after the upbeat feeling generated” by RadioShack’s Super Bowl ad, which “poked fun at its outdated image.” RadioShack has been taking a new approach to transform “its image from an old-school electronics store into a destination for shoppers looking for entertainment gadgets.”

Aston Martin owners may need to head back to the showroom, said Henry Foy in the Financial Times. The British car manufacturer has recalled almost 18,000 cars—roughly 75 percent of the cars it has built since 2008—“after discovering that a Chinese supplier had used fake materials in its cars’ accelerator pedals.” The supplier had reportedly used plastic that was “not of industrial quality” in manufacturing the part, making it more liable to break and prompting Aston Martin to recall the cars and shift production back to the U.K.

Don’t count HBO out just yet, said Todd Spangler in Variety.com. While Netflix has been growing at blazing speeds, HBO “remains significantly more profitable.” The 41-year-old cable network’s parent company, Time Warner, “broke out HBO’s financial results for the first time” this week, revealing $1.3 billion in revenue for the last quarter of 2013. “HBO remains in a league of its own,” said Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, adding that the company hasn’t seen “any discernible effect” on its business from streaming services like Netflix.

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