Report: Microsoft Is Eyeing Qualcomm's Steve Mollenkopf As Its Next CEO

In the search for Microsoft's next CEO, rumor was that the board was considering someone new to the company.

Now Bloomberg is reporting that the dark horse is Qualcomm COO Steve Mollenkopf.

Mollenkopf is the No. 2 guy at Qualcomm, which makes chips for mobile devices. During Microsoft's recent analyst day, Ballmer named Qualcomm, along with Apple and Samsung, as examples of companies that successfully shifted to take advantage of mobile computing, the Bloomberg article notes.

Ballmer is heavily involved with picking a successor and he's set Microsoft firmly on the path of building its own mobile devices. He will want the next CEO to continue down that path, a former Microsoft headhunter told Business Insider.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally was considered to be the frontrunner to get the job. But word was that Mulally wasn't a good fit because he didn't know enough about the tech business to run such a complicated company, with products ranging from consumer gadgets to software development tools. Then Ford's board starting publicly saying that Mulally intended to stick around at Ford.

Pundits have been tossing out lots of other names as candidates: Stephen Elop, former CEO of Nokia who joined Microsoft again when Microsoft acquired Nokia's device business; various internal Microsoft executives; and Patrick Gelsinger, CEO of VMWare. But Mollenkopf is a surprising new name to consider.