Coronavirus Outbreak: Microsoft will come out of COVID-19 crisis pretty strong, says CEO Satya Nadella

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella exuded confidence that the software giant will come out “pretty strong” from the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. In an interview to CNBC, the India-born CEO said that Microsoft has a great balance sheet. Also, the company has a very diverse business along with a mix of annuity, non-annuity which is also stronger than the earlier financial crisis. [caption id=“attachment_4460351” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Reuters[/caption] Nadella asserted that Microsoft Azure and cloud services were under pressure as a number of people are working from home and staying indoors. He added that Microsoft is being able to meet the demands of work from home kits. Microsoft Teams, a workplace communication and collaboration software, has become one of the most preferred platforms for people working from home. The software is also being used by educational institutes for conducting online classes. “If this was a previous generation of data centre architectures or software architectures, I don’t think we would have been able to deal with this crisis as effectively as we have been able to,” Nadella said. He, however, expressed concern on whether the demand holds up in the US and Europe along with other developed markets that have been largely hit by the pandemic. On Sunday, Nadella in a letter to his employees described the coronavirus pandemic as “uncharted territory". “Like many of you, there have been times over the past weeks where it has felt overwhelming and all-encompassing for me. I worry about the health and safety of my family, my co-workers, and friends. My wife and I worry for her ageing parents, who are far away from us in India,” the Microsoft CEO wrote in the letter which he also shared on Linkedin.