Good riddance!

Maybe they'll find a leader that can actually make the ship turn.

upon the completion of a process to choose his successor

Believed by insiders to be a chair-throwing contest.

...

His recent management has been poor. I think his replacement is going to have an uphill struggle!

Mack.

If the surge in Microsoft stock is any reflection then this is a welcome change to many.

That was just fools buying on emotion with no intelligent thought. Watch next week as it pulls back. Note that it finished the day on the downside with a gap up. The mark of fools buying from smart sellers.

its transformation to a ... company that empowers people for the activities they value most

"Oh, sorry, wrong script. I thought we were filming the new commercial."

Good news... for company and share holders :)

Hmmm, $21 billion income, sitting on $76 billion in cash. Sure, there were blunders, but I'd like to have such a poor showing.

Sure it hasn't been all bad, but Microsoft has watched Apple and Google work a step ahead of them for the better part of 10 years. These two companies essentially rose up from nothing (Apple was nearly bankrupt) and look at them now.

Customers are screaming about the issues with Windows 8 and it is just more of the same falling on deaf ears "we know what is best" mentality that I blame on Ballmer.

Azure is a great example of something Microsoft is getting right. They are listening to customers and building in features that people want and will use and Azure is now a pretty nice service. Maybe Scott Guthrie needs to bring this mentality to the whole company?

here is a full interview after for those who follow this topic - he claimed that it is since last 4 or 5 years he is looking to interview and give feedback for new CEO to the board.

[zdnet.com...]

Microsoft without Bill Gates is like Apple without Steve Jobs.

Sure it can continue to function, but it needs a new visionary.

Having a CEO just means it can function, big whoop.

The visionary doesn't need to have the CEO title - it's even counterproductive to put the burden on the visionary capable I think. CEO needs to build a structure and culture around him/herself that allows the others to do what they do best.
Hence when it comes to product related "visionarism" the CEO must be capable to recognize visionary talent in the area (far from easy if he's got none him/herself) and learn to listen to it using a fairly direct channel not clouded by company politics (also far from easy in some corporate cultures) to build a shared vision that
a - works in the market
b - stops following others and leads on its own merits
c - the CEO can defend when taking to analsist, stakeholders, press, employees, and whatnot
So he has to make it his/her own, even if (s)he didn't figure it out by him/herself.

I'm pretty sure Mr. Gates never had much product vision - never seen evidence of it beyond having a far to harsh business "shark" mentality for my taste. Anyway I feel people credit him for too much he simply stole elsewhere. [Now knowing what to steal and whatnot can be considered vision of a sort too, it's just not my definition]
From the looks of things Steve jobs might have developed the sense over the years (I'm pretty sure he did not have it in the Apple ][ days), but I also know how strong a performer he was (saw him while he was working for NeXT) on stage that it's hard to tell if he learned to listen to others and make it his own or if he sourced it himself. It's also not important: he did! Still, I hope it's the former and I hope the visionaries he relied on are (still) at Apple and that Tim Cook is learning to listen to them (appearances are that he is) and make the transition to make it his own (not there yet AFAIK).

Sell your Microsoft stock while it's still up. It's going to go down soon!

The wrong type of investors jumped on the stock, and next quarter when there isn't a huge jump in revenues or profit they are going to take the stock back down.

Ballmer's Retirement is bad news for Microsoft!