One of the candidates to become Microsoft’s new CEO is prepared to sell the company’s Xbox business and shut down its Bing search engine, reports Bloomberg.

The candidate is Stephen Elop, 49, the former CEO of Nokia. He was also formerly in charge of Microsoft’s Office division.

According to the article, "Elop would be prepared to sell or shut down major businesses to sharpen [Microsoft’s] focus, [three people with knowledge of Elop’s thinking said.] He would consider ending Microsoft’s costly effort to take on Google with its Bing search engine, and would also consider selling healthy businesses such as the Xbox game console if he determined they weren’t critical to the company’s strategy, the people said."

Oddly, Bloomberg buried this shocker more than halfway though its article that runs about 1000 words.

The article notes that if appointed CEO, Elop would likely make Microsoft’s Office products more available: Elop "would consider breaking with decades of tradition by focusing the company’s strategy around making the popular Office software programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint available on a broad variety of smartphones and tablets, including those made by Apple Inc. and Google Inc.," according to the three people familiar with Elop’s thinking.