Based on its conference call, Microsoft's new CEO wants to distance the tech company from its storied operating system as soon as possible, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Friday, describing the strategy as a Soviet-style "purge."
It was Satya Nadella's first earnings call after taking the helm of the massive company in February, and Cramer said the new chief executive was looking to reposition the tech stalwart as a cloud computing company.
Windows, the operating system that helped bring personal computing to the masses in the early 1990s, will still make Microsoft money—but the company just doesn't want to talk about it, Cramer said.
"This is a Window's purge call," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street." "You cannot hear Windows. They try to avoid it. It's almost as if he's rebranding the company right here, right now."
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Microsoft beat expectations when it reported fiscal third-quarter earnings Thursday, sending shares on an up-and-down ride during Friday's trading session. The shares opened higher, only to fall slightly before noon.
Disclosure: Cramer's charitable trust does not own shares of Microsoft.
—By CNBC's Jeff Morganteen. Reuters contributed to this report.