The technology titan continues its search for a new CEO, but it seems it will have to deal with some more internal tension to go with some of which that has already been reported at the company.
More specifically, this one concerns one of its board members.
According to this Reuters report, the proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis has flung some accusations away at director John Thompson regarding conflicts of interests — as he is also the CEO of a cloud computing firm that goes by the name of Virtual Instruments.
While complete specifics are unavailable for the time being, Thompson is also said to be in charge of a committee responsible for choosing a new CEO. The man has refused to comment on these accusations up until now, however.
In fact, the plot further thickens, and how.
Glass Lewis claims that Virtual Instruments actually sells licenses and devices to Redmond, and the company has received $2.3 million from Microsoft — Thompson’s role at both companies is said to have led to a certain conflict of interests when viewed from this angle.
And the story does not end here, oh it does not.
Shareholders are now being advised to vote against John Thompson in the upcoming board elections, and instead elect Bill Gates and outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer.
These are rumors for now, but judging by how things are heading, we may see some notable changes in the upper most management at the company before the year is out.
Wow it’s too bad none of this was going on when movies like Pirates of Silicon Bay were coming out. But hey this will all be worked out in the end.
Yeah, there have been at least three such instances from reputed sources, so something surely is going on behind the scenes, no matter how little. There is an activist agenda at play, and probably some grouping in the top most management.
There are many who thought ValueAct was nothing but trouble, me included.