Nomura Pounds The Table On Mulally: Insists He Should Still Be Viewed As Top Candidate To Head Microsoft

Nomura's Rick Sherlund earlier suggested Alan Mulally will indeed be the next Microsoft MSFT head -- a thesis which seems to directly go against comments made by Mulally Thursday morning. The Nomura analyst believes Mulally, currently President and CEO at Ford F, gave responses on Bloomberg TV which were more or less "non-answers." He seems to believe these would be exactly the kinds of responses coming out of Mulally if he was still in talks with Microsoft's Board. Sherlund maintains a Buy rating and $45 price target on shares of Microsoft. The stock is down about 2.8 percent to $37.83 at last check; Ford shares are up 0.9 percent to $16.77.