In a blog entry on Microsoft Corp's Investor Relations page, the company said it planned to publicize its selection in early 2014. CNET said in its report that in the past few months after announcing the retirement of outgoing Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, names such as Ford CEO Alan Mulally and Microsoft's VP of cloud-and-enterprise group Satya Nadella were rumored to be considered for the role but had been shot down eventually by the supposed candidates themselves. Others such as Nadella, remained tight-lipped about the rumored candidacy. on the other hand, CNET said the new CEO of Microsoft will be left making such tough decisions, including making divestments or spin-offs.

The report said the next Microsoft chief will be left following the footsteps of faster-moving companies by shearing off some of its non-core businesses as it is now too big to compete. Nomura Equity Research Rick Sherlund suggested that Microsoft could sell its search business Bing to Yahoo or Facebook, or divest its Xbox business to a consumer electronics company.

The online services division of the tech giant, where Bing resides, incurred $1.3 billion last year and $8.1 billion the year before. On the other hand, CNET said that keeping Bing might be a good strategic fit for Microsoft should the new CEO see it this way as it has already integrated the service to almost all of its software and hardware. Moreover, keeping Xbox, despite being a non-core business, could also be kept by the new CEO, as it is a leading brand with a terrific upside in a growth area, said the report.

CNET said that although the new CEO need not to make any divestments or spin-offs, Microsoft needs a new strategy to reverse its position in the tablets and software space as it will endanger its Windows business, which is currently the company's cash cow.