Satya Nadella Microsoft Microsoft has chosen its next CEO and may remove Bill Gates as chairman, Bloomberg reports.

Bloomberg says Microsoft's next CEO will be Satya Nadella, an executive vice president at the company. Nadella is in charge of Microsoft's lucrative cloud and enterprise group.

The news backs up an earlier report from Recode's Kara Swisher that Microsoft will pick Nadella as its CEO.

Nadella has been at Microsoft for 20 years and his name has been consistently floated around as one of the top internal candidates for the CEO job.

Before Microsoft's recent executive reorganization, Nadella was in charge of the company's server and tools business. He also worked in research and development for online services and was vice president of the business division.

It would make sense if Gates stepped down as chairman of the board. In theory, Microsoft's new CEO probably wouldn't want two of his or her predecessors (Gates and current CEO Steve Ballmer) watching everything from the board.

Microsoft began its CEO search in August 2013, when Ballmer announced he planned to retire within a year. Since then, people began throwing around several names for Ballmer's replacement, including Ford CEO Alan Mulally. Mulally later came out and publicly stated he would not take the CEO job at Microsoft. Other potential internal candidates were Tony Bates, VP of business development, and Stephen Elop, the former CEO of Nokia who joined the company after it sold to Microsoft.

Early reactions to the potential Nadella appointment seem to be pretty positive. Aaron Levie, CEO of cloud storage startup Box, tweeted: "Satya is a very strong pick for CEO. [He] understands how to build platforms, gets the cloud, and has a solid vision for the future."