With Ford chief Alan Mullaly reportedly out of the running for the Microsoft CEO post, attention has turned to Ericsson chief Hans Vestberg.

According to Reuters(Opens in a new window), Microsoft is “considering” Vestberg to replace outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer. He’s been at Ericsson since 1998, working in China, Brazil, Mexico, and the U.S. during his tenure. Vestberg served as the firm’s chief financial officer from 2007 to 2009 before becoming CEO.

It’s not exactly a done deal, Reuters said. Ericsson has struggled against Chinese phone makers like Huawei, and Microsoft might prefer someone with more experience in the consumer sector as it battles against Apple and Samsung with Windows Phone and its Surface lineup of tablets.

Last month, the Microsoft board said that it expects to select a Ballmer successor in early 2014. At the time, board member John W. Thompson said that Microsoft initially identified more than 100 qualified CEO candidates, and spoke to several dozen. That list was whittled down to about 20 people, and has been reduced since.

Reuters said today that a decision probably won’t happen until the last week of January at the earliest.

Among the rumored contenders was Mulally, but the Ford chief officially shot down those rumors in a recent interview. “I would like to end the Microsoft speculation because I have no other plans to do anything other than serve Ford,” Mulally told the AP.

Other reported candidates include Stephen Elop, the former Nokia CEO who returned to Microsoft after Redmond bought Nokia’s handset business, as well as Satya Nadella, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group, and former Skype chief Tony Bates, who now heads up Microsoft’s business development.